I 


>rnia 
al 


FT 


ON  #A-M-W  LLIAMSQN 


A  Soldier  of  the  Legion 


BOOKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHORS 

CAR  OF  DESTINY 

THE  CHAPERON 

GOLDEN  SILENCE 

GUESTS  OF  HERCULES 

HEATHER  MOON 

IT  HAPPENED  IN  EGYPT 

LADY  BETTY  ACROSS  THE  WATER 

LORD  LOVE  LAND  DISCOVERS  AMERICA 

MOTOR  MAID 

MY  FRIEND  THE  CHAUFFEUR 

PORT  OF  ADVENTURE 

PRINCESS  VIRGINIA 

ROSEMARY  IN  SEARCH  OF  A  FATHER 

SET  IN  SILVER 


A  Soldier  of  the  Legion 


BY 
C-  N.  &  A  M  Williamson 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 

DOUBLED  AY,  PAGE  &  CO. 

1914 


Copyright,  1914,  by 
C.  N.  &  A.  M.  WILLIAMSON 

All  rights  reserved,  including  that  of 

translation  into  foreign  language*, 

including  the  Scandinavian 


TO 
THE  LEGION 


2138346 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     The  Telegram 3 

II.     The  Blow 15 

III.  The  Last  Act  of  "  Girls'  Love  "...  34 

IV.  The  Upper  Berth 45 

V.     The  Night  of  Storms 58 

VI.     The  News 71 

VII.     Sir  Knight 80 

VIII.     On  the  Station  Platform 95 

IX.     The  Colonel  of  the  Legion 106 

X.     The  Voice  of  the  Legion 117 

XI.     Four  Eyes 132 

XII.     No.  1033 143 

XIII.  The  Agha's  Rose 148 

XIV.  Two  on  the  Roof 163 

XV.     The  Secret  Link 173 

XVI.     The  Beetle 189 

XVII.  The  Mission 203 

XVIII.  Gone 223 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIX.  What  Happened  at  Dawn        .      .     .      .228 

XX.    The  Beauty  Doctor 242 

XXI.    The  Eleventh  Hour 254 

XXII.    The  Heart  of  Max 263 

XXIII.  "  Where  the  Strange  Roads  Go  Down  "  .   278 

XXIV.  The  MaO  Music 285 

XXV.  Corporal  St.  George,  Deserter       .      .      .294 

XXVI.    Sanda's  Wedding  Night 302 

XXVII.    The  Only  Friend 317 

XXVIII.     Sanda  Speaks 332 

XXIX.    Out  of  the  Dream,  a  Plan 346 

XXX.  The  Play  of  Cross  Purposes     .      .      .      .351 

XXXI.  The  Gift  .                                                 .  368 


A  Soldier  of  the  Legion 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE   LEGION 

CHAPTER  I 

THE   TELEGRAM 

IT  WAS  the  great  ball  of  the  season  at  Fort  Ellsworth.  For 
a  special  reason  it  had  begun  unusually  late;  but,  though 
the  eighth  dance  was  on,  the  great  event  of  the  evening  had 
not  happened  yet.  Until  that  should  happen,  the  rest, 
charming  though  it  might  be,  was  a  mere  curtain-raiser  to 
keep  men  amused  before  the  first  act  of  the  play. 

The  band  of  the  — th  was  playing  the  "Merry  Widow" 
waltz,  still  a  favourite  at  the  fort,  and  only  one  of  the 
officers  was  not  dancing.  All  the  others  —  young,  middle- 
aged,  and  even  elderly  —  were  gliding  more  or  less  grace- 
fully, more  or  less  happily,  over  the  waxed  floor  of  the 
big,  white-walled,  flag-draped  hall  where  Fort  Ellsworth 
had  its  concerts,  theatricals,  small  hops,  and  big  balls. 
Encircled  by  their  uniformed  arms  were  the  wives  and  sis- 
ters of  brother  officers,  ladies  whom  they  saw  every  day, 
or  girls  from  the  adjacent  town  of  Omallaha,  whom  they 
could  see  nearly  every  day  if  they  took  the  trouble.  Some 
of  the  girls  were  pretty  and  pleasant.  They  all  danced 
well,  and  wore  their  newest  frocks  from  Chicago,  New 
York,  and  even,  in  certain  brilliant  cases,  from  Paris.  But 
—  there  was  a  heart-breaking  "but."  Each  army  woman, 

3 


4  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

each  visiting  girl  from  Omallaha  knew  that  at  any  minute 
her  star  might  be  eclipsed,  put  out,  as  the  stars  at  dawn 
are  extinguished  by  the  rising  sun.  Each  one  knew,  too, 
that  the  sun  must  be  at  the  brink  of  the  horizon,  because  it 
was  half -past  eleven,  and  it  took  more  than  twenty  min- 
utes to  motor  to  Ellsworth  from  Omallaha.  Besides,  Max 
Doran, who  used  to  love  the  * '  Merry  Widow ' '  waltz,  was  not 
dancing.  He  stood  near  the  door  pretending  to  talk  to 
an  old  man  who  had  chaperoned  a  daughter  from  town  to 
the  ball;  but  in  reality  he  was  lying  in  wait,  ready  to 
pounce. 

It  was  a  wonder  that  he  hadn't  gone  to  meet  her;  but 
perhaps  she  had  refused  his  escort.  A  more  effective 
entrance  might  be  made  by  a  dazzling  vision  alone  (the 
"stage  aunt"  did  not  count)  than  with  a  man,  even  the 
show  young  man  of  the  garrison. 

The  show  young  man  talked  jerkily  about  the  weather, 
with  his  eyes  on  the  door.  They  were  laughing  eyes  of  a 
brilliant  blue,  and  accounted  for  a  good  deal  where  girls 
were  concerned;  but  not  all.  There  were  other  things 
—  other  advantages  he  had,  which  made  it  seem  quite 
remarkable  that  a  rather  dull  Western  fort  like  Ellsworth 
should  possess  him.  His  family  was  high  up  in  the  "  Four 
Hundred  "  in  New  York.  He  had  as  much  money  as,  with 
all  his  boyish  extravagances  and  wild  generosity,  he  knew 
what  to  do  with.  He  was  exceedingly  good  to  look  at,  in 
the  dark,  thin,  curiously  Latin  style  to  which  he  seemed 
to  have  no  right.  He  was  a  rather  popular  hero  in  the 
— th,  for  his  polo,  a  sport  which  he  had  introduced  and  made 
possible  at  Fort  Ellsworth,  and  for  his  boxing,  his  fencing, 
and  his  marksmanship.  He  had  been  graduated  fourth 


THE  TELEGRAM  5 

in  his  class  at  West  Point  three  years  before,  so  that  he 
might  have  chosen  the  engineers  or  artillery ;  but  the  cav- 
alry was  what  he  preferred;  and  here  he  was  at  old  Fort 
Ellsworth,  enjoying  life  hugely  and  so  well  helping  others 
to  enjoy  life  that  every  one  liked  him,  no  one  was  jealous 
or  grudged  him  what  he  had. 

There  he  stood,  this  "show  young  man,"  well-groomed 
and  smart  in  his  full-dress  uniform  of  second  lieutenant  of 
cavalry,  the  stripes  and  splashes  of  yellow  suiting  his 
dark  skin :  a  slim,  erect  figure,  not  very  tall,  but  a  soldier 
every  inch  of  him,  though  the  wide-apart  blue  eyes  gave 
the  square-chinned  face  a  boyish  air  of  wistfulness,  even 
when  he  smiled  his  delightfully  childlike,  charming  smile. 
Girls  glanced  at  him  as  they  swung  past  in  their  partners' 
arms,  noticing  how  tense  was  the  look  on  the  brown  face, 
and  how  the  straight  eyebrows  —  even  blacker  than  the 
smooth  dark  hair  —  were  drawn  together  in  expectant 
concentration. 

Suddenly  the  door  opened.  The  curtain-raiser  was 
over.  The  drama  of  the  evening  was  about  to  begin. 

It  seemed  wonderful  that  the  band  could  keep  presence 
of  mind  to  go  on  playing  the  "Merry  Widow,"  instead  of 
stopping  short  with  a  gasp  and  crash  of  instruments,  to 
start  again  with  the  "Tango  Trance,"  her  dance  in  "Girls' 
Love." 

She  flashed  into  the  ballroom  like  a  dazzling  fairy  thing, 
all  white  and  gold  and  glitter.  Because  she  knew  that  — 
so  to  speak  —  the  curtain  would  ring  up  for  her  entrance, 
and  not  an  instant  before,  in  the  fondness  of  her  heart  for 
young  officers  she  had  not  even  delayed  long  enough  to 
change  the  dress  she  wore  as  the  Contessa  Gaeta  in  the  third 


6  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

act  of  "Girls'  Love."  The  musical  comedy  had  been 
written  for  her.  In  it  she  had  made  her  first  almost  start- 
ling success  two  years  ago  in  London,  where,  according  to 
the  newspapers,  all  young  men  worth  their  salt,  from  dukes 
down  to  draymen,  had  fallen  in  love  with  her.  She  had 
captured  New  York,  too,  and  now  she  and  her  company 
were  rousing  enthusiasm  and  coining  money  on  their  tour 
of  the  larger  Western  cities. 

The  Gaeta  dress  looked  as  if  it  were  made  of  a  million 
dewdrops  turned  to  diamonds  and  sprinkled  over  a  lacy 
spider-web ;  the  web  swathing  the  tall  and  wandlike  figure 
of  Miss  Billie  Brookton  in  a  way  to  show  that  she  had  all 
the  delicate  perfections  of  a  Tanagra  statuette. 

Despite  the  distraction  of  her  entrance,  followed  by 
that  of  the  little  gray  lady  engaged  as  her  aunt,  the  musi- 
cians had  the  self-control  to  go  on  with  their  "Merry  Wid- 
owing," irrelevant  as  it  now  seemed.  The  dancers  went  on 
dancing,  also,  though  the  dreaded  dimness  of  extinction 
had  fallen  upon  even  the  brightest,  prettiest  girls,  who 
tried  to  look  particularly  rapturous  'in  order  to  prove  that 
nothing  had  happened.  They  felt  their  partners'  interest 
suddenly  withdrawn  from  them  and  focussed  upon  the 
radiance  at  the  door.  No  use  ignoring  that  Radiance, 
even  if  one  had  in  self-defence  to  pretend  that  it  didn't 
matter  much,  and  wasn't  so  marvellously  dazzling  after  all ! 

"There  goes  Mr.  Doran  to  welcome  her  —  of  course!" 
said  an  Omallaha  girl  lately  back  from  New  York.  "I 
wonder  if  they  really  are  engaged?" 

"Why  shouldn't  they  be?"  her  partner  generously 
wanted  to  know.  (He  was  married.) 

"  Well,  for  one  thing,  she  doesn't  seem  the  sort  of  woman 


THE  TELEGRAM  7 

who'd  care  to  give  up  her  career.  She's  so  self-conscious 
that  she  must  be  selfish,  and  then  —  she's  older  than 
he  is." 

"Good  heavens,  no!     She  doesn't  look  nineteen!" 

"On  the  stage." 

"Or  off,  either." 

"Anyhow,  some  people  in  New  York  who  know  her 
awfully  well  told  me  that  she'd  never  see  twenty-nine 
again.  An  actress  of  twenty-nine  who  can't  look  nine- 
teen had  better  go  into  a  convent!  Though,  when  you 
notice,  her  mouth  and  eyes  are  hard,  aren't  they?  What 
would  Max  Doran's  wonderful  mother  say  if  her  son 
married  Billie  Brookton?  " 

"Miss  Brockton's  father  was  a  clergyman  in  Virginia. 
She  told  me  so  herself,"  said  the  married  partner. 

"She  would Oh,  I  don't  mean  to  be  catty.  But 

she  must  have  a  background  that's  a  contrast  —  like  that 
aunt  of  hers.  I  don't  believe  she'd  want  to  marry 
for  years  yet  —  a  man  who'd  make  her  leave  the  stage. 
She  has  the  air  of  expecting  the  limelight  to  follow  her 
everywhere  through  life,  and  I'm  sure  Max  Doran's 
gorgeous  mother  wouldn't  let  her  daughter-in-law  go  on 
acting,  even  if  Max  didn't  mind." 

"Max  would  mind.  He'd  never  stand  it,"  Max's 
brother  officer  informed  the  girl  who  had  been  to  New 
York.  "Though  he's  so  simple  in  his  manner,  he's  proud, 
I  guess.  But  whether  she's  nineteen  or  twenty-nine,  I 
don't  see  how  Billie  could  do  better  than  take  Max  Doran, 
unless  she  could  snap  up  an  English  duke.  And  they  say 
there  aren't  any  unmarried  ones  going  at  present.  She'd 
be  an  addition  to  this  post  as  a  bride,  wouldn't  she?  " 


8  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

"Ye-es,"  answered  the  girl,  giving  wonderful  dramatic 
value  to  her  pause. 

Just  then  the  reign  of  the  "  Merry  Widow"  came  to  an 
end,  and  as  soon  after  as  could  be,  the  "  Tango  Trance"  be- 
gan. The  band  had  practised  it  in  Miss  Brockton's  honour; 
and  it  had  been  ordered  as  the  first  dance  after  her  arrival. 
The  aunt  sat  down,  and  Billie  Brookton  began  "tangoing" 
with  Max  Doran.  They  were  a  beautiful  couple  to  watch; 
but  of  course  people  had  to  keep  up  the  farce  of  dancing, 
too.  This  was  not,  after  all,  a  theatre.  One  was  supposed 
to  have  come  for  something  else  than  to  stare  at  Billie 
Brookton  without  paying  for  a  place. 

"Your  pearls,"  she  whispered,  as  she  and  Doran  danced 
the  tango  together,  taking  graceful  steps  which  she  had 
taught  him  during  the  fortnight  they  had  known  each 
other.  "  How  do  they  look?  " 

"Glorious  on  you!"  he  answered.  "And  the  ring  has 
come.  I  telegraphed,  you  know.  It's  what  you  wanted. 
I  was  able  to  get  it,  I'm  happy  to  say.  Oh,  Billie,  can  it 
be  possible  that  I  shall  have  you  for  mine  —  all  mine? 
It  seems  too  wonderful  to  be  true." 

"I've  promised,  haven't  I?"  She  laughed  half  under 
her  breath,  a  pretty,  tinkling  laugh.  "Honour  bright, 
Max  dear,  you're  the  first  man  I  ever  said  *yes'  to.  I 
hope  I  shan't  be  sorry!" 

"I  won't  let  you  be  sorry,"  whispered  Max.  "I'll  do 
everything  to  make  you  so  happy  you'll  forget  the 
theatre." 

"If  anything  or  anybody  could  make  me  do  that,  it 
would  be  you,"  she  answered,  under  cover  of  the  music. 
"I  believe  you  must  be  very  fascinating,  or  else  I  —  but 


THE  TELEGRAM  9 

never  mind Now  let's  stop  dancing  and  you'll  show 

me  the  ring.  I'm  engaged  for  the  next  —  and  I  can't  wait 
till  you  and  I  have  another  together." 

Max  took  her  to  sit  down  at  an  end  of  the  room  unin- 
fested  by  chaperons.  No  one  at  all  was  there.  He  had 
the  ring  in  some  pocket,  and,  by  dint  of  sitting  with  his 
"back  to  the  audience,"  hoped  to  go  through  the  sacred 
ceremony  without  being  spied  upon.  The  ring  Billie  had 
asked  for  was  a  famous  blue  diamond,  of  almost  as  deep  a 
violet  as  a  star-sapphire,  and  full  of  strange,  rainbow 
gleams.  It  had  belonged  to  a  celebrated  actress  who  had 
married  an  Englishman  of  title,  and  on  her  death  it  had 
been  advertised  for  sale.  Billie Brookton,  who  "adored" 
jewels,  and  whose  birthstone  conveniently  was  the  dia- 
mond, had  been  "dying  for  it."  "She  was  not  supersti- 
tious," she  said,  "about  dead  people's  things."  Now  the 
blue  diamond,  with  a  square  emerald  on  either  side,  and  set 
in  a  band  of  platinum,  was  hers.  She  took  it  between 
thumb  and  finger  to  watch  the  sparks  that  came  and  went, 
deep  under  the  sea-like  surface  of  blue.  As  she  looked  at 
the  ring,  Doran  looked  at  her  eyelashes. 

Never,  he  thought,  could  any  other  woman  since  the 
world  began  have  had  such  eyelashes.  They  were  extraor- 
dinarily long  and  thick,  golden  brown,  and  black  at  the  tips. 
The  Omallahagirl  who  had  been  to  New  York  thought  that 
Billie  Brookton  herself  had  had  more  to  do  than  heaven  in 
the  painting  of  those  curled-up  tips.  But  such  a  suggestion 
would  have  been  received  with  contempt  by  Max  Doran, 
who  at  the  threshold  of  twenty-five  considered  himself 
a  judge  of  eyelashes.  (He  was  not;  nor  of  a  woman's 
complexion;  but  believing  in  himself  and  in  Billie,  he  was 


10  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

happy.)  Miss  Brookton  had  a  complexion  nearly  as  white, 
and  it  seemed  to  him  — more  luminous,  more  ethereal, 
than  the  string  of  pearls  he  had  given  her  a  month  in  ad- 
vance of  her  birthday.  She  said  it  would  be  her  twenty- 
third,  and  Max  had  been  incredulous  in  the  nicest  way. 
He  would  have  supposed  her  to  be  nineteen  at  the  most,  if 
she  had  not  been  so  frank. 

"Now,  if  you've  looked  at  the  ring  enough  off  your 
finger,  will  you  let  me  put  it  on?"  he  begged.  "I'll  make  a 
wish  —  a  good  wish:  that  you  shall  never  grow  tired  of 
your  bargain.  For  it  is  a  bargain,  isn't  it?  From  the 
minute  this  ring  is  on  your  finger  you're  engaged  to  me." 

"What  will  your  beautiful  mother  say?"  asked  Billie, 
hanging  back  daintily,  and  doing  charming  things  with  her 
eyelashes. 

"Oh,  she'll  be  surprised  at  first,"  Max  had  to  admit. 
"You  see,  she's  so  young  herself  and  such  a  great  beauty, 
it  must  be  hard  for  her  to  realize  she's  got  a  son  who  has 
grown  up  to  be  a  man.  I  used  to  think  she  was  the  most 
exquisite  creature  on  earth,  but  now " 

His  words  broke  off,  and  he  looked  up  from  the  gleaming 
line  of  gold-and-black  lashes.  An  orderly  had  come 
quickly  and  almost  noiselessly  to  him.  "For  you,  Lieu- 
tenant,"  the  man  announced  with  a  salute,  holding  out  a 
telegram. 

"May  I?"  murmured  Doran,  and  perfunctorily  opened 
the  envelope. 

Billie  went  on  gazing  at  the  ring.  She  was  faintly  an- 
noyed at  the  delay,  for  she  was  anxious  to  see  how  the 
blue  diamond  would  look  on  her  finger,  and  Max  had  asked 
to  wish  it  on.  The  lights  in  the  stone  were  so  fascinating, 


THE  TELEGRAM  11 

however,  that  for  an  instant  she  forgot  the  interruption. 
Then,  sensitive  to  all  that  was  dramatic,  something  in  the 
quality  of  Max  Doran's  silence  struck  her.  She  felt  sud- 
denly surrounded  by  a  chilling  atmosphere  which  seemed 
to  shut  her  and  Max  away  from  the  dancers,  away  from 
music  and  life,  as  if  a  thick  glass  case  had  been  let  down 
over  them  both.  She  glanced  up  quickly.  No  wonder  she 
had  felt  so  cold.  Doran's  face  looked  frozen.  His  eyes  were 
still  fixed  on  the  telegram,  though  there  had  been  time  for 
him  to  read  it  over  and  over  again.  He  was  so  lost  in  the 
news  it  had  brought  that  he  had  forgotten  even  her  —  for- 
gotten her  in  the  moment  when  she  had  been  consenting 
to  a  formal  engagement,  she,  the  illusive,  the  vainly  de- 
sired one,  run  after  just  to  the  foot  of  her  unclimbable 
mountain  by  the  nimblest,  the  richest,  everywhere! 

Her  small  soul  was  stirred  to  resentment.  She  wanted 
to  punish  Max  Doran  for  daring  to  neglect  her  at  such  a 
time,  even  for  a  few  seconds;  but  a  half -angry,  half- 
frightened  study  of  the  dark,  absorbed  face  changed  her 
mood.  No  man  could  look  like  that  unless  something 
awful  had  happened. 

What,  that  was  awful,  could  happen  to  Max  Doran? 
Why,  he  could  lose  all  his  money ! 

Billie's  heart  leaped,  and  then  seemed  to  fall  back 
heavily  in  the  lovely  bosom  sheathed  like  a  lily  with  a 
film  of  sparkling  dew.  Would  he  ever  speak?  She  could 
not  wait.  Besides,  it  was  right  to  be  sympathetic.  "  Max, 
what  is  it  —  dear  Max?"  she  whispered  in  the  honey- 
sweet  voice  of  Gaeta  in  "Girls'  Love." 

He  started,  and  waked  up.  "It's  my  mother.  She's 
been  hurt,"  he  said.  "My  God,  I  must  go  at  once!" 


12  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

Almost,  Billie  sighed  out  her  intense  relief  in  words; 
but  she  had  just  presence  of  mind  and  self-control  enough 
to  hold  them  back.  Gently  she  took  the  telegram  from 
him,  and  he  let  her  do  it.  Meanwhile,  however,  she  had 
slipped  the  ring  on  to  her  own  finger  —  but  not  the  en- 
gaged finger.  Evidently  this  was  no  time  for  an  an- 
nouncement, or  congratulations  and  sensations.  But  it 
was  just  as  well  to  have  the  blue  diamond  safe  on  one's 
hand,  even  if  it  were  the  right  hand  instead  of  the  left. 

"'Your  mother  dangerously  injured  in  motor  acci- 
dent,'"  she  read.  "*  Asking  to  see  you.  Come  without 
delay.  Reeves.' ' 

"Oh,  how  very  sad!"  breathed  Billie.  "How  awful 
if  she  should  be  disfigured]  But  I  do  hope  not." 

Doran  did  not  remember  to  thank  his  love  for  her  solici- 
tude. He  got  up,  not  frozen  now,  but  a  little  dazed.  It  oc- 
curred to  Billie  that  he  had  never  looked  so  handsome,  so 
much  a  man.  She  felt  that  he  was  gathering  himself  to- 
gether. "  I'll  telephone  to  Omallaha  for  a  special  train  to 
connect  with  the  limited  at  Chicago,"  he  said.  "By  the 
time  I  can  see  the  Colonel  and  get  off  it  ought  to  be  ready. 
Yes,  I  ought  to  catch  the  limited  that  way.  It's  awful 
to  leave  you  like  this,  but  I  must.  I'll  take  you 
to  your  aunt,  and  —  who's  got  the  next  dance  with 
you?" 

"Major  Naylor,"  she  answered,  slightly  injured,  for  not 
ten  minutes  ago  he  had  been  looking  at  her  card.  He 
ought  to  have  remembered  every  name  on  it  and  in  the 
right  order. 


THE   TELEGRAM  13 

"Well,  he'll  come  to  you  in  a  minute.  Trust  him  not 
to  lose  a  second !  And  —  you'll  write  to  me?  " 

"Of  course;  you'll  wire  as  soon  as  you  can,  how  your 
mother  is  —  and  everything?  On  Monday  I  shall  be  back 
in  Chicago." 

"I'll  wire  the  moment  I  can,"  Max  assured  her.  "You 
know  the  address  in  New  York?  " 

"Oh,  yes,  everybody  knows  the  beautiful  Mrs.  Doran's 
address.  I'll  write  or  telegraph  every  day.  My  heart 
will  be  with  you." 

He  squeezed  her  hand  so  desperately  that  she  could 
have  screamed  with  pain  from  the  pressure  of  the  blue 
diamond.  But  with  touching  self-control  she  only  smiled 
a  strained,  sympathetic  little  smile.  And  Max  had  for- 
gotten all  about  the  ring ! 

"Thank  you,  my  beautiful  one,  my  angel,"  he  said. 
And  Billie's  large  brown  eyes  (so  effective  with  her  delicate 
dark  brows  and  rippling  yellow  hair)  gave  him  a  lovely 
look.  She  had  been  called  many  things  by  many  adoring 
men,  but  perhaps  never  before  an  "angel."  Max  Doran 
was  very  young,  in  some  ways  even  younger  than  his 
years.  "Good-bye,"  she  murmured.  "But  no  —  not 
'good-bye.'  That's  a  terrible  word.  Au  revoir.  You'll 
come  to  me  when  you  can,  I  know.  I  shall  be  in  Chicago  a 
fortnight.  But  if  you  can't  leave  Mrs.  Doran,  why,  in 
six  weeks  I  shall  be  in  New  York." 

"Don't  speak  of  six  weeks!"  he  exclaimed.  "It's  like 
six  years.  I  must  see  you  before  that.  But  —  my  mother 
is  before  everything  just  now." 

They  bade  each  other  farewell  with  their  eyes.  Then 
he  took  her  to  Mrs.  Liddell,  the  small  gray  aunt,  and 


14  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

hardly  was  Billie  seated  when  Major  Naylor  dashed  up  to 
claim  her  for  Gaeta's  waltz  in  the  first  act  of  "Girls' 
Love." 

After  that,  things  happened  quickly  with  Max  Doran. 
He  seemed  to  dream  them,  and  was  still  in  the  dream, 
tearing  toward  Chicago  in  a  special  train  whose  wheels 
rushed  through  the  night  in  tune  with  that  first-act  music 
from  "Girls' Love." 


CHAPTER  H 

THE  BLOW 

THE  name  that  signed  the  telegram  was  that  of  Mrs. 
Doran's  lawyer  and  man  of  business.  It  was  that  also  of 
Max  Doran's  old-time  chum,  Grant  Reeves,  Edwin  Reeves' 
son.  And  when  Max  stepped  out  of  the  limited  in  the 
Grand  Central  Station  of  New  York,  among  the  first  faces 
he  saw  were  those  of  the  two  Reeveses,  who  had  come  to 
meet  him.  He  shook  hands  with  both,  warmly  and  grate- 
fully with  Grant.  He  had  never  been  able  really  to  like  his 
friend's  father.  But  it  was  to  him  he  turned  with  the 
question:  "How  is  she?" 

The  elder,  tall,  thin,  clean-shaven,  with  carrot-red  hair 
turning  gray,  had  prominent  red  eyebrows  over  pale,  in- 
telligent eyes  that  winked  often,  owing  to  some  weakness 
of  the  lids,  which  had  lost  most  of  their  lashes.  This 
disfigurement  he  concealed  as  well  as  he  could  with  rim- 
less pince-nez,  which  some  people  said  were  not  neces- 
sary as  an  aid  to  eyesight.  They  were  an  aid  to  vanity, 
however;  and  the  care  Edwin  Reeves  bestowed  on  his 
clothes  suggested  that  he  was  a  vain  as  well  as  a  clever 
man. 

The  son  was  a  young  and  notably  good-looking  copy  of 
his  father,  whose  partner  in  business  he  had  lately  become. 
They  were  singularly  alike  except  in  colouring,  for  Grant 

15 


16  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

was  brown-haired  and  brown-eyed,  with  plenty  of  curled- 
back  lashes  which  gave  him  an  alert  look. 

Both  men  started  forward  at  the  sight  of  Max,  Grant 
striding  ahead  of  Edwin  and  grasping  Max's  hand,  "I 
had  to  come,  old  chap,"  he  said,  with  a  pleasant  though 
slightly  affected  accent  meant  to  be  English.  "I  wanted 
just  to  shake  hands  and  tell  you  how  I  felt." 

"Thank  you,  Grant,"  said  Max.  "Is  she  —  is  there 
hope?" 

"Oh,  there's  always  hope,  you  know;  isn't  there,  gov- 
ernor? " 

Grant  Reeves  appealed  to  his  father,  who  had  joined 
them.  "Who  can  tell?  She's  wonderful." 

Edwin  Reeves  took  the  hand  Max  held  out,  and  then 
did  nothing  with  it,  in  the  aloof,  impersonal  way  that  had 
always  irritated  Max,  and  made  him  want  to  fling  away  the 
unresponsive  fingers.  Now,  however,  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life  he  did  not  notice.  He  was  lost  in  his  desire  for  and 
fear  of  the  verdict. 

"It  would  only  be  cruel  to  raise  his  hopes,"  the  father 
answered  the  son.  "The  doctors  (there  are  four)  say  it's  a 
miracle  she's  kept  alive  till  now.  Sheer  will-power. 
She's  living  to  see  you." 

Max  was  dumb,  his  throat  constricted.  And  then, 
there  was  nothing  to  say.  Something  deep  down  in  him 
—  something  he  could  not  bear  to  hear  —  was  asking  why 
she  should  suddenly  care  so  much?  She  had  never  cared 
before,  never  really  cared,  though  in  his  intense  admiration 
of  her,  almost  amounting  to  worship,  he  had  fought  to 
make  himself  believe  that  she  did  love  him  as  other 
mothers  loved  their  sons.  Yet  his  heart  knew  the  truth: 


THE   BLOW  17 

that  she  had  become  more  and  more  indifferent  as  he  grew 
up  from  a  small  boy  into  a  young  man.  Since  he  went  to 
West  Point  they  had  spent  very  little  time  together, 
though  they  were  always  on  affectionate  terms.  She  had 
never  spoken  a  disagreeable  word  to  him,  never  given  him 
a  cross  look.  Only  —  there  had  been  nothing  of  the  mother 
about  her.  She  had  treated  him  like  a  nice  visiting  boy 
who  must  be  entertained,  even  fascinated,  and  then  gently 
got  rid  of  when  he  began  to  be  a  bore.  In  his  first  term  at 
West  Point  she  had  sailed  for  Europe,  and  stopped  there 
for  two  years.  When  he  was  graduated  she  had  gone  again, 
and  stayed  another  year.  They  had  met  only  once  since 
he  had  been  stationed  at  Fort  Ellsworth:  last  Christmas, 
when  he  had  run  on  to  New  York  and  surprised  her.  She 
had  been  in  great  beauty,  looking  not  a  day  over  thirty. 
And  now  —  Max  could  not  make  it  seem  true.  But,  at 
least,  she  wanted  him.  Max  clutched  at  the  thought  with 
passion,  and  scarcely  heard  Grant  saying  that  he  must 
hurry  on  to  the  office;  he  had  come  only  for  a  word  and  a 
handshake:  it  was  better  that  the  governor  alone  should 
go  with  dear  old  Max  to  the  house. 

Mrs.  Doran's  town  automobile  was  waiting  with  a  solemn 
chauffeur  and  footman  who  bent  their  eyes  reverently, 
not  to  look  the  stricken  young  soldier  in  the  face.  Max 
had  a  sick  thrill  as  he  saw  the  smart  blue  monster,  with  its 
row  of  glittering  glass  eyes;  it  had  been  his  Christmas 
present  to  his  mother  by  request.  When  the  telegram 
told  him  briefly  that  she  had  been  hurt  in  a  motor  accident, 
he  had  thought  with  agony  that  it  might  have  been  in  the 
car  he  had  given.  He  was  thankful  that  it  had  not  been 
so.  That  would  have  seemed  too  horrible  —  as  if  he  had 


18  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE   LEGION 

killed  her.  Now  he  would  hear  how  it  had  really  hap- 
pened. Every  nerve  was  tense  as  if  he  were  awaiting  an 
operation  without  anesthetics. 

There  were  not  many  blocks  to  go  from  the  Grand  Cen- 
tral to  the  Fifth  Avenue  home  of  the  Dorans,  an  old 
house  which  had  been  remodelled  and  made  magnificent 
by  Max's  father  to  receive  his  bride.  In  less  than  ten 
minutes  the  blue  automobile  had  slipped  through  all  the 
traffic  and  reached  its  destination ;  but  many  questions 
can  be  asked  and  answered  in  eight  minutes.  Between 
the  moment  of  starting,  and  the  moment  when  Max's  one 
hastily  packed  suitcase  was  being  carried  up  to  the  door, 
he  had  heard  the  whole  story.  The  fated  car  had  been  a 
friend's  car.  There  had  been  a  collision.  The  two  auto- 
mobiles had  turned  over.  For  half  an  hour  she  had  lain 
crushed  under  the  weight  of  the  motor  before  she  could 
be  got  out.  Her  back  was  broken,  and  she  had  been  hor- 
ribly burnt.  Even  if  she  could  have  lived  —  which  was 
impossible  —  she  would  have  been  shockingly  disfigured. 
Edwin  Reeves  had  been  with  her  once,  for  a  few  minutes : 
she  had  wanted  to  speak  to  him  about  certain  things, 
matters  of  business,  and  the  doctors,  who  never  left  her, 
had  stopped  giving  her  opiates  on  purpose.  From  the  first 
she  had  said  that  she  must  be  kept  alive  till  Max  could 
come,  and  that  no  matter  what  she  had  to  suffer  her  mind 
must  be  clear  for  a  talk  with  him.  After  that,  nothing 
mattered.  She  wanted  to  die  and  be  out  of  her  misery. 
When  Mr.  Reeves  had  been  taken  into  her  room  her  face 
had  been  covered  with  a  white  veil,  and  Max  must  prepare 
himself  to  be  received  in  the  same  way.  It  was  better  that 
he  should  know  this  beforehand  and  be  spared  a  shock. 


THE  BLOW  19 

Never  to  see  that  beautiful  face  again  in  this  world! 
Max  felt  like  one  dead  and  galvanized  as  he  walked  into 
the  house  and  was  received  by  a  doctor  —  some  great 
specialist  whose  name  he  had  heard,  but  whom  he  had 
never  chanced  to  meet.  Not  once  did  his  thoughts  rush 
back  to  Billie  Brookton,  and  the  night  when  he  had  meant 
to  put  on  her  finger  the  blue  diamond  in  the  platinum  ring. 
Billie  was  in  another  world,  a  world  a  million  miles  away, 
as  following  the  doctor  Max  walked  softly  into  his  mother's 
room. 

There  he  had  once  more  that  insistent  feeling  of  un- 
reality. The  gay  room  with  its  shell-pink  melting  into 
yellow  and  orange  looked  so  unsuited  to  any  condition 
but  joy  that  it  was  impossible  to  believe  tragedy  had 
stalked  in  uninvited.  Even  with  the  morning  light  shut 
out  by  the  drawn  yellow  curtains,  and  the  electricity 
turned  on  in  the  flower  or  gauze-shaded  lamps,  it  looked  a 
place  dedicated  to  the  joy  of  life  and  beauty.  But  when, 
with  a  physical  effort,  Max  turned  his  eyes  to  the  bed, 
copied  from  one  where  Marie  Antoinette  had  slept,  he 
saw  that  which  seemed  to  throw  a  pall  of  crape  over  the 
fantastic  golden  harmonies.  A  figure  lay  there,  very 
straight,  very  flat  and  long  under  the  coverlet  pulled  high 
over  the  breast.  Even  the  hands  were  hidden:  and  over 
the  face  was  spread  a  white  veil  of  chiffon,  folded  double, 
so  that  no  gleam  of  eye,  no  feature  could  even  be  guessed 
at. 

Until  that  moment,  Max  had  kept  his  self-control. 
But  at  sight  of  that  piteous  form,  and  remembering  the 
radiant  face  framed  with  great  bunches  of  red-gold  hair, 
which  he  had  kissed  good-bye,  in  this  very  bed  not  three 


20  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

months  ago,  the  dam  which  had  held  back  the  flood  of 
anguish  broke.  It  was  as  if  his  heart  had  turned  to  water. 
Tears  sprang  from  his  eyes,  and  the  strength  went  out  of 
his  knees.  It  was  all  he  could  do  not  to  fall  at  the  side  of 
the  bed  and  to  sob  out  his  mother's  name,  telling  her  that 
he  would  give  his  life  a  hundred  times  for  hers  if  that 
could  be,  or  that  he  would  go  out  of  the  world  with  her 
rather  than  she  should  go  alone.  But  something  came  to 
his  help  and  kept  him  outwardly  calm  save  for  a  slight 
choking  hi  the  throat  as  he  said  softly,  standing  by  the 
bedside,  "Dearest,  I  am  here." 

"At  last,"  came  a  faint  murmur  from  under  the  double 
veil. 

Max  thought,  with  a  sharp  stab  of  pain,  that  he  would 
not  have  recognized  the  voice  if  he  had  not  known  that  it 
was  his  mother's.  It  sounded  like  the  voice  of  a  little,  frail, 
very  old  woman;  whereas  Rose  Doran  had  been  a  creature 
of  glorious  physique,  looking  and  feeling  at  least  fifteen 
years  younger  than  her  age. 

"I  started  the  minute  I  had  the  telegram,"  Max  said, 
wanting  to  make  sure  that  she  realized  his  love,  his  frantic 
haste  to  reach  her.  "  It  has  seemed  a  hundred  years !  Dar- 
ling, if  I  could  bear  this  for  you.  If  - 

"Please,  don't,"  the  little  whining  voice  under  the  veil 
fretfully  cut  him  short.  "I  can't  see  very  well.  Has  the 
doctor  gone  out?  " 

"Yes,  dearest.     We 're  alone." 

"I'm  glad.  There  isn't  much  time,  and  I've  got  a 
story  to  tell  you.  I  ought  to  call  it  a  confession." 

That  swept  Max's  forced  calmness  away.  "A  confes- 
sion from  you  to  me!"  he  cried  out,  horrified.  "Never! 


THE  BLOW  21 

Darling  One,  whatever  it  is  I  don't  want  to  hear  it  —  I 

don't  need  to  hear  it,  I  know Rest.  Be  at  peace. 

Just  let  us  love  each  other." 

"You  don't  know  what  you  are  talking  about."  The 
veiled  voice  grew  shrill.  "You  only  do  harm  trying  to 
stop  me.  You'll  kill  me  if  you  do." 

"Forgive  me,  dear."  Max  controlled  himself  again. 
"  I'll  not  say  another  word.  I " 

"Then  don't  —  don't!  I  want  to  go  on  —  to  the  end. 
I'd  rather  you  sat  down.  I  can  see  you  standing  there. 
It's  like  a  black  shadow  between  me  and  the  light,  accusing 
—  no,  don't  speak !  It  needn't  accuse.  You  wouldn't 
have  had  the  life  you've  had,  if  —  but  I  mustn't  begin 
like  that.  Where  are  you  now?  Are  you  near  enough  to 
hear  all  I  say?  I  can't  raise  my  voice." 

"  I'm  sitting  down,  close  by  the  bed.  I  can  hear  the 
least  whisper,"  Max  assured  her.  He  sat  with  his  head 
bowed,  his  hands  gripping  the  arms  of  the  chair.  This 
seemed  unbearable,  to  spend  the  last  minutes  of  her  life 
hearing  some  confession !  It  was  not  right,  from  a  mother 
to  a  son.  But  he  must  yield. 

"I  don't  know  how  long  I  can  stand  it  —  the  pain,  I 
mean,"  she  moaned.  "So  I  can't  try  and  break  things 
gently  to  you,  for  fear  —  I  have  to  stop  in  the  midst.  I'm 
not  your  mother,  Max,  and  Jack  wasn't  your  father.  But 
he  thought  he  was.  He  never  knew.  And  he  loved  you. 
I  didn't.  I  never  could.  You  see  —  I  did  know.  You  must 
have  wondered  sometimes.  I  saw  you  wondered;  I  sup- 
pose you  never  guessed,  even  though  I  always  told  you  to 
call  me  Rose,  or  anything  you  liked,  except  mother?  " 

She  was  waiting  for  him  to  answer;  and  he  did  answer, 


22  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

though  it  was  as  if  she  had  thrown  him  over  a  precipice, 
and  he  were  hanging  by  some  branch  which  would  let  him 
crash  down  in  an  instant  to  the  bottom  of  an  unknown 
abyss. 

"No,  I  never  guessed."  Queer  how  quiet,  how  utterly 
expressionless  his  voice  was!  He  heard  it  in  faraway 
surprise. 

"I  used  to  be  afraid  at  first  that  Jack  would  guess,  you 
were  so  unlike  either  of  us,  so  dark,  so  —  so  Latin. 
But  he  said  you  were  a  throw-back  to  his  Celtic  ancestors. 
There  were  French  and  Irish  ones  hundreds  of  years  ago, 
you  know.  He  never  suspected.  Everything  happened 
just  as  I  hoped  it  would  —  just  as  I  wanted  it  to.  But  I 
didn't  realize  how  I  should  feel  about  it  if  I  were  going  to 
die.  The  minute  I  came  to  myself  after  —  the  accident,  it 
rushed  over  me.  Not  the  very  first  thought.  That  was 
about  myself.  I  wanted  to  know  if  my  looks  were  gone. 
When  they  had  to  say  yes,  I  was  glad  —  thankful  —  I 
could  die.  I'd  have  poisoned  or  starved  myself  rather 
than  live  on.  But  no  need  of  that.  I  think  I  could  let 
myself  slip  away  any  minute  now.  I'm  just  —  holding 
on.  For  something  told  me  —  I  have  a  feeling  that  Jack 
himself  came,  and  has  been  here  ever  since,  knowing  all  I 
had  done  and  willing  me  to  tell  the  truth.  I  struggled  a 
little  against  it,  for  why  shouldn't  you  go  on  being  happy? 
Nothing  was  your  fault.  But  it  was  borne  in  on  me  that 
I  must  give  you  the  chance  to  choose  for  yourself,  and  - 
another.  That's  why  Jack  has  come,  perhaps.  She  is  his 
daughter." 

"There  was  a  girl,  our  child.  But  —  you  can't  under- 
stand unless  I  tell  you  the  story.  I  shall  have  strength. 


THE  BLOW  23 

I  feel  I  shall  now  —  to  get  through  with  it.  Perhaps  Jack 
will  help.  He  was  the  one  human  being  I  ever  loved 
better  than  myself.  That  was  real  love!  What  I  did 
was  partly  for  his  sake,  I'm  honestly  sure  of  that.  He 
wouldn't  have  let  me  do  it.  But  it  made  him  happy, 
not  knowing 

"You've  been  told  over  and  over  how  you  were  born 
in  France,  when  Jack  and  I  had  the  Chateau  de  la  Tour, 
on  the  Loire.  That  was  true  —  the  one  true  thing.  But 
you  weren't  born  in  the  chateau.  It  wasn't  for  nothing 
that  you  learned  French  almost  as  easily  as  you  breathed 
— and  Latin,  too.  I  suppose  things  like  that  are  in  people's 
blood.  You  are  French.  If  I  had  left  you  where  you 
were,  you  would  have  grown  up  Maxime  Delatour. 
Delatour  was  your  real  father's  name;  he  came  originally 
of  the  de  la  Tours,  but  his  branch  of  the  family  had 
gone  down,  somehow.  Even  the  name  was  spelled  differ- 
ently, in  the  common  way.  But  they  lived  in  the  same 
neighbourhood  —  that  is  how  it  all  came  about. " 

She  paused,  and  gave  a  sigh  like  a  faint  moan.  But 
Max  was  silent.  He  could  spare  her  nothing.  She  must 
go  on  to  the  end  —  if  the  end  were  death.  For  there 
was  somebody  else,  somewhere,  who  had  to  be  put  in  his 
place  —  the  place  he  had  thought  was  his. 

"It  was  really  because  I  loved  Jack  —  too  much,"  the 
veiled  woman  still  fretfully  excused  herself.  "I  should 
have  been  nobody,  except  for  my  looks.  He  married 
me  for  my  looks,  because  I  was  strong  and  tall  and  fine, 
as  a  girl  should  be.  He  thought  I  could  give  him  a 
splendid  heir.  You  know  how  things  are  arranged  in 
this  family.  The  property  goes  from  father  to  son,  or 


24  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

a  daughter,  if  there's  no  son.  But  they  all  pray  for 
sons.  The  Dorans  want  to  carry  on  the  name  they're 
so  proud  of  —  just  as  you  have  been  proud!  The  wife 
of  a  Doran's  important  only  if  she's  beautiful,  or  if  she 
has  a  son.  I  wanted  to  be  important  for  both  reasons. 
Oh,  how  I  wanted  it! 

"Jack  took  me  to  England  for  our  honeymoon,  and  then 
to  France.  We  hadn't  been  in  Paris  long  before  I  knew 
I  was  going  to  have  a  child.  Jack  was  so  happy!  He 
was  sure  it  would  be  a  boy — the  most  gorgeous  boy  ever 
born.  How  I  remember  the  day  I  told  him,  and  he  said 
that!  But  all  the  time  I  had  the  presentiment  it  would 
be  a  girl.  I  felt  guilty,  miserable,  when  Jack  talked 
about  the  baby.  .  .  .  The  doctors  said  it  would  be 
safer  for  me  not  to  have  a  sea  voyage,  so  we  decided  to 
stop  in  France  till  after  the  child  came.  We  stayed  in 
Paris  at  first,  and  Jack  and  I  used  to  go  to  the  Louvre 
to  see  beautiful  pictures  and  statues — for  the  'sake  of 
the  boy.' 

"When  the  Salon  opened  we  went  there,  and  I  saw  a 
painting  every  one  was  talking  about  —  by  a  new  artist. 
It  was  called  'Bella  Donna,'  just  a  woman's  head  and 
shoulders.  Max,  she  was  like  me!  But  she  was  horrible, 
wicked  —  somehow  deformed,  though  you  couldn't  see 
how.  You  only  felt  it.  And  besides  being  like  me,  she 
was  like  a  lynx.  There  was  one  in  the  Zoo  in  London, 
with  just  her  expression.  Jack  and  I  saw  it  together, 
and  he  laughed,  and  said  now  he  knew  who  my  first 
ancestress  was.  He  didn't  say  anything  about  my  look- 
ing like  'Bella  Donna,'  but  I  knew  he  must  have  thought 
it.  He  got  me  away  from  the  picture  as  soon  as  he  could, 


THE  BLOW  25 

but  I  couldn't  forget.  The  lynx-face,  with  the  yellow 
eyes  and  red  hair  like  mine,  haunted  me.  I  began  to 
dream  of  my  child  being  born  like  that  —  a  girl,  deformed 
in  the  horrid,  mysterious  way  that  you  could  only  feel. 
I  could  never  go  to  sleep  again  on  a  night  after  the 
dream.  I  suppose  I  looked  pale;  and  he  worried,  and  the 
doctors  advised  the  country.  We  had  some  friends 
who'd  just  come  back  from  the  Loire,  and  they  told  us 
about  a  wonderful  chateau  there  that  was  to  be  rented 
furnished.  It  belonged  to  an  old  family  named  de  la 
Tour,  who  had  lost  their  money.  They  had  a  roman- 
tic, tragic  sort  of  history  that  interested  us,  especially 
Jack,  so  we  went  to  see  the  place.  There  were  vineyards 
badly  cultivated,  and  a  forest,  and  some  shooting,  too; 
and  we  took  it  for  a  few  months.  But  we  hadn't  been  there 
many  weeks  when  a  telegram  came  to  Jack  from  Edwin 
Reeves.  Edwin  acted  for  him  even  then.  It  was  im- 
portant, on  account  of  some  business,  for  Jack  to  go  home. 
He  would  have  answered  that  it  was  impossible,  but  I 
said,  why  not  go?  I  was  safe,  and  he  could  be  back  in  a 
month  or  five  weeks.  I  had  old  Anne  Wickham  with 
me,  and  she'd  been  my  nurse  when  I  was  a  little  girl, 
you  know,  and  my  maid  afterward,  till  she  died.  You 
can  remember  her." 

Max  could.  As  a  very  tiny  boy  he  had  been  almost 
afraid  of  old  Anne  Wickham,  because  his  nurse  was  afraid 
of  her:  also  because  she  had  glared  at  him  critically, 
mercilessly,  with  her  great  eyes  in  dark  hollows,  never 
smiling  kindly,  as  other  people  did,  but  seeming  to  search 
for  some  fault  in  him.  Now,  suddenly,  he  understood 
this  gloomy  riddle  of  his  childhood. 


26  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

Rose  Doran,  beneath  her  veil,  did  not  wait  for  any 
answer,  or  wish  for  one.  She  hurried  on,  only  stopping 
now  and  then  to  sigh  out  her  restlessness  and  pain, 
making  Max  bite  his  lip  and  quiver  as  if  under  the  lash. 

"We  had  a  Paris  doctor  engaged,  and  a  trained  nurse, " 
she  said.  "They  were  to  come  weeks  before  I  expected 
my  baby.  I  don't  know  how  much  Jack  was  to  pay  for 
the  doctor  —  thousands  of  dollars;  and  Jack  thought 
to  be  back  in  a  month  before,  at  latest.  But  one  day  I 
caught  my  foot  going  downstairs,  and  fell.  We  had  to 
send  for  the  village  doctor  in  a  hurry,  and  Anne  had  to 
remember  all  she  knew  about  nursing.  The  child  was 
a  seven  months'  baby  —  a  girl.  And  she  had  a  face  like 
mine,  and  like  'Bella  Donna,'  and  like  a  lynx.  There 
was  just  that  look  of  deformity  I  had  dreamed  —  mys- 
terious and  dreadful.  I  hated  the  creature.  I  couldn't 
feel  she  was  mine  and  Jack's.  She  was  like  some  change- 
ling in  an  old  witch  tale.  I  couldn't  bear  it!  I  knew  that 
I'd  rather  die  than  have  Jack  see  that  wicked  elf  after 
all  his  hopes.  I  told  the  doctor  so.  I  threatened  to  kill 
myself.  I  don't  know  if  I  meant  it.  But  he  thought  I 
did.  He  was  a  young  man.  I  frightened  him.  While 
he  was  trying  to  comfort  me  an  idea  flashed  into  my  head. 
It  seemed  to  shoot  in,  like  an  arrow.  I  begged  the  doc- 
tor to  find  me  a  boy  baby  whose  mother  would  take  the 
girl  and  a  lot  of  money.  I  said  I  would  give  him  ten 
thousand  dollars  for  himself,  too,  if  he  could  manage 
it  secretly,  so  no  one  but  he  and  Anne  Wickham  and  I 
need  ever  know.  At  first  he  kept  exclaiming,  and  wouldn't 
listen.  But  I  cried,  and  partly  by  working  on  his  feelings 
and  partly  with  the  bribe  that  was  a  fortune  to  such  a 


THE  BLOW  27 

man,  I  persuaded  him.  Anne  helped.  She  would  have 
done  anything  for  me.  And  she  knew  the  Dorans.  She 
knew  Jack  could  never  feel  the  same  to  me,  as  the  mother 
of  that  impish  girl. 

"The  doctor  knew  about  a  young  woman  who  had  just 
had  a  child  —  a  boy.  He'd  helped  bring  it  into  the  world 
a  night  or  two  before.  She  was  the  wife  of  a  private 
soldier  who'd  been  ordered  off  to  Algeria  somewhere. 
They'd  been  married  secretly.  If  she  had  money  she 
would  have  followed  him.  But  they  were  very  poor. 
The  man  was  mixed  up  with  the  romance  of  the  de  la 
Tours;  he  belonged  to  the  branch  of  the  family  that  had 
gone  down.  They  were  called  Delatour,  but  every  one 
knew  their  history.  The  doctor  thought  the  girl  would 
do  anything  for  the  money  I'd  offer  —  and  to  get  to 
Algeria.  He  managed  the  whole  thing  for  me,  and  certi- 
fied that  my  child  was  a  boy.  He  even  went  to  Paris 
and  sold  my  pearls  and  a  diamond  tiara  and  necklace, 
and  lots  of  other  things,  worth  ever  so  many  thousands 
more  than  I'd  promised  to  pay  him  and  Madame  Dela- 
tour. You  see,  I  hadn't  any  great  sums  of  money  by  me, 
so  I  was  forced  to  sell  things.  And  afterward  I  had  to 
pretend  that  my  jewels  were  stolen  from  a  train  while 
we  were  in  the  dining-car;  otherwise  Jack  would  have 
wondered  why  I  never  wore  them.  I  was  thankful  the 
night  you  were  brought  to  me.  I  hadn't  any  remorse  then, 
about  sending  the  other  baby  away.  I  told  you  she 
didn't  seem  mine.  She  seemed  hardly  human.  But  I 
was  frightened  because  you  were  so  dark.  You  had  quan- 
tities of  black  hair.  I  didn't  even  try  to  love  you.  Only 
I  felt  you  were  very  valuable.  So  did  Anne.  And 


28  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

when  Jack  came  hurrying  back  to  me  on  the  doctor's 
telegram,  he  was  pleased  with  you.  He  called  you  in 
joke  his  'little  Frenchman.'  He  didn't  dream  it  was 
all  truth!  And  he  didn't  mind  your  being  called  Max. 
You'd  already  been  baptized  Maxime,  after  the  soldier; 
and  his  wife  made  just  that  one  condition:  that  the  name 
should  be  kept. 

"I  told  Jack  I'd  always  loved  the  name  of  Max,  so  he 
loved  it,  too;  and  though  you  had  other  names  given  to 
you  —  the  ones  we  planned  beforehand  —  nothing  fitted 
the  'little  Frenchman'  so  well  as  Max.  That's  all  the 
story.  At  first  Anne  and  I  used  to  be  afraid  of  blackmail, 
either  from  the  Delatour  woman  (who  went  off  at  once, 
before  she  was  really  strong  enough  to  travel)  or  from 
the  doctor,  who  hurried  her  away  as  much  for  his  sake 
as  for  hers,  lest  it  should  be  found  out  by  some  neighbour 
that  her  boy  had  been  changed  for  a  girl.  Luckily  for 
us,  though,  people  avoided  her.  They  didn't  believe 
she  was  really  married.  But  the  doctor  said  she  was. 
And  he  turned  out  to  be  honest.  He  never  tried  to  get 
more  money  out  of  me.  Neither  did  the  woman.  His 
name  was  Paul  Lefebre,  and  the  village  was  Latour. 
I've  never  heard  anything  from  them  or  about  them 
since  Jack  and  I  and  you  and  Anne  left  the  Chateau  de 
la  Tour,  when  you  were  six  weeks  old.  I  didn't  wish  to 
hear.  I  wanted  to  forget,  as  if  it  had  all  been  a  bad  dream. 
Only  Anne's  eyes  wouldn't  let  me.  They  seemed  to  know 
too  much.  I  couldn't  help  being  glad  when  she  was 
dead,  though  she'd  been  so  faithful.  But  when  Jack 
died  in  that  dreadful,  sudden  way,  then  for  the  first  time 
I  felt  remorse  —  horrible  remorse,  for  a  while.  ...  I 


THE  BLOW  29 

thought  he  was  taken  from  me  by  God  as  a  punishment — 
the  one  human  being  I'd  ever  loved  dearly!  And  I  got 
insomnia,  because  his  spirit  seemed  to  be  near,  looking  at 
me,  knowing  everything.  But  the  feeling  passed.  I 
suppose  I'm  not  deep  enough  to  feel  anything  for  long. 
I  lived  down  the  remorse.  And  it  was  fortunate  for  me 
I  had  a  child;  otherwise  all  but  a  little  money  would  have 
gone  to  the  Reynold  Dorans.  You've  been  good  to  me, 
Max,  and  I've  liked  you  very  well.  I've  tried  not  to  think 
about  the  past.  But  when  I  did  think,  I  said  to  myself 
that  you  had  nothing  to  complain  of.  What  a  different 
life  it  would  have  been  for  you,  with  your  own  people. 
And  even  as  it  is,  you  needn't  give  up  anything  unless 
you  choose.  If  Jack  were  alive  I'd  never  have  told, 
even  dying.  But  he's  gone,  and  I  shall  be  —  soon.  So 
far  as  I'm  concerned  I  don't  care  which  way  you  choose: 
whether  you  write  to  Doctor  Lefebre  or  not.  Only  for 
the  sake  of  the  name  —  Jack's  name  —  don't  let  there 
be  a  scandal  if  you  decide  to  try  and  find  the  girl.  Maybe 
you  can't  find  her.  She  may  be  dead.  Then  it  needn't 
go  against  your  conscience  to  let  things  stay  as  they  are. 
The  Reynold  Dorans  have  heaps  of  money. " 

"That  isn't  the  question  exactly, "  said  Max.  "What- 
ever happens,  I  haven't  the  right — but  never  mind  .  .  . 
I  don't  want  to  trouble  you,  God  knows.  I  can  see 
partly  how  you  must  have  felt  about  the  baby,  and  about 
fath  —  I  mean,  about  the  whole  thing.  It  isn't  for  me 
to  blame  —  I  —  thank  you  for  telling  me.  Somehow  I 
must  manage  —  to  make  things  straight,  without  in- 
juring fath  —  without  injuring  the  name. "  His  voice 
broke  a  little.  John  Doran  had  died  under  an  operation 


30  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

when  Max  was  ten,  but  he  had  adored  his  father,  and 
still  adored  his  memory.  There  had  been  great  love 
between  the  big,  quiet  sportsman  and  the  mercurial, 
hot-headed,  enthusiastic  little  boy  whom  Jack  Doran 
had  spoiled  and  called  "Frenchy"  for  a  pet  name.  After 
more  than  fourteen  years,  he  could  hear  the  kind 
voice  now,  clearly  as  ever.  "Hullo,  Frenchy!  how  are 
things  with  you  to-day?"  used  to  be  the  morning  greet- 
ing. 

How  were  things  with  him  to-day?     .     .     . 

Max  had  heard  the  story  with  a  stolidity  which  seemed 
to  himself  extraordinary;  for  excepting  the  shiver  of  physi- 
cal pain  which  shook  him  at  each  sigh  of  suffering  from 
under  the  veil,  he  had  felt  nothing,  absolutely  nothing, 
until  the  voice  of  dead  Jack  Doran  seemed  to  call  to  him 
out  of  darkness. 

"He  wasn't  my  father,"  came  the  stabbing  reminder; 
but  the  love  which  had  been  could  never  be  taken  away. 
"I  must  do  what  you  would  want  me  to  do,"  Max  an- 
swered the  call.  In  his  heart  he  knew  what  that  thing 
was.  He  must  give  everything  up.  He  ought  to  look 
for  the  girl  and  for  his  own  parents,  if  they  lived.  The 
daughter  of  John  Doran  must  have  what  was  hers. 

As  he  thought  this,  Rose  spoke  again,  more  slowly  now, 
since  the  story  was  told,  and  there  was  no  longer  any 
haste.  "  Remember,  nobody  knows  yet  but  you  and  me, 
Max,"  she  said.  "Not  even  Edwin  Reeves.  All  he 
knows  is  that  I  had  something  to  say  to  you.  If  he 
tried  to  guess  what  it  was,  he  must  have  guessed  some- 
thing very  different  from  this.  Why  not  find  out  where 
she  is,  if  you  can,  and  somehow  contrive  to  give  her  money 


THE   BLOW  31 

or  send  it  anonymously  —  enough  to  make  her  rich;  and 
let  the  rest  go  as  it  is?  I  told  you  just  now  that  I  didn't 
care  much  either  way,  and  I  don't,  for  myself,  because 
I  shall  be  out  of  it  all,  and  because  I  know  you  loved  Jack 
too  well  not  to  be  careful  for  his  sake,  what  you  do.  But 
I  care  more  for  your  sake  than  I  thought  I  cared  at  first. 
You're  so  quiet,  I  know  I've  struck  you  hard.  Almost  — 
I  wish  I  hadn't  told." 

"I  don't,"  answered  Max  with  an  effort.  "And  you 
mustn't.  It  was  the  only  thing." 

And  yet,  even  as  he  spoke,  he  was  conscious  of  wishing 
that  she  had  not  told.  Some  women,  having  done  what 
she  had  done  for  the  love  of  a  man  and  for  their  own 
vanity,  would  have  gone  out  of  the  world  in  silence  — 
still  for  the  love  of  the  man,  and  for  their  own  vanity. 
Vanity  had  been  the  ruling  passion  of  Rose  Doran's  life. 
Max  had  realized  it  before.  Yet  something  in  the  end 
had  been  stronger  than  vanity,  and  had  beaten  it  down. 
He  wondered  dimly  what  the  thing  was.  Perhaps  fear, 
lest  soon,  on  the  other  side  of  the  dark  valley,  she  should 
have  to  meet  reproach  in  the  only  eyes  she  had  ever  loved. 
And  she  needed  help  in  crossing  —  Jack  Doran's  help. 
Maybe  this  was  her  way  of  reaching  out  for  it.  She 
had  told  the  truth;  and  she  seemed  to  think  that  was 
enough.  She  advised  Max  to  leave  things  as  they  were, 
after  all.  And  he  was  tempted  to  obey. 

No  longer  was  he  stunned  by  the  blow  that  had  fallen. 
He  felt  the  pain  of  it  now,  and  faced  the  future  con- 
sequences. He  stood  to  lose  everything:  his  career,  for 
Max  had  his  vanity,  too;  and  without  the  Doran  name 
and  the  Doran  money  he  could  not  remain  in  the  army. 


32  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

If  he  resolved  to  hand  over  all  that  was  his  to  the  girl, 
he  must  go  away,  must  leave  the  country. 

He  would  have  to  think  of  some  scheme  by  which  the 
girl  could  get  her  rights,  and  the  world  could  be  left  in 
ignorance  of  Rose  Doran's  fraud.  To  accomplish  this, 
he  must  sacrifice  himself  utterly.  He  must  disappear 
and  be  forgotten  by  his  friends — a  penniless  man,  without 
a  country.  And  Billie  Brookton  would  be  lost  to  him. 

Strange,  this  was  his  first  conscious  thought  of  her 
since  he  had  stepped  out  of  the  train,  almost  his  first 
since  leaving  her  at  Fort  Ellsworth.  He  was  half  shocked 
at  his  forgetfulness  of  such  a  jewel,  so  nearly  his,  the 
jewel  so  many  other  men  wanted.  He  wanted  her,  too, 
desperately,  now  that  the  clouds  had  parted  for  an  instant 
to  remind  him  of  the  bright  world  where  she  lived  —  the 
world  of  his  past. 

"You're  so  deadly  still!"  Rose  murmured.  "Are  you 
thinking  hard  things  of  me?" 

"No,  never  that,"  Max  said. 

"How  are  you  going  to  decide?  Shall  you  take  my 
advice,  keep  your  place  in  this  world,  and  give  her  money, 
if  you  find  her?  And  most  likely  you  never  can.  It's 
such  a  long  time  ago."  Rose's  voice  dragged.  It  was 
very  small  and  weak,  very  tired. 

"It's  your  advice  for  me  to  do  that?"  Max  asked, 
almost  incredulously.  "And  yet  —  she's  your  own  child, 
his  child." 

"Not  the  child  of  our  souls.  You'll  see  what  I  mean, 
if  you  ever  see  her.  Think  it  over  —  a  few  minutes,  and 
then  tell  me.  I  feel  —  somehow  I  should  like  to  know, 
before  going.  Wake  me  —  in  ten  minutes.  I  think  I 


THE  BLOW  33 

could  sleep  —  till  then.  Such  a  rest,  since  I  told  you ! 
No  pain." 

"Oughtn't  I  to  call  the  doctor?"  Max  half  rose  from 
his  chair  by  the  bedside. 

"No,  no.  I  want  nothing  —  except  to  sleep  —  for  ten 
minutes.  Can  you  decide  —  in  ten  minutes?" 

"Yes." 

"You  promise  to  wake  me  then?" 

"Yes,"  Max  said  again. 

For  ten  minutes  there  was  silence  in  the  room,  save 
for  a  little  sound  of  crackling  wood  in  the  open  fire  that 
Rose  had  always  loved. 

Max  had  decided,  and  the  time  had  come  to  keep  his 
promise.  He  must  speak,  to  wake  the  sleeper.  But  he 
did  not  know  what  to  call  her.  She  said  that  she  had 
never  loved  him  as  a  son.  She  must  always  have  felt 
irritated  when  he  dared  to  address  her  as  "Dearest" —  he, 
the  little  French  bourgeois.  She  would  hate  it  now. 

"Rose!"  he  whispered.     Then  a  little  louder,  "Rose!" 

She  did  not  answer. 

He  would  not  have  to  tell  her  his  decision.  But  per- 
haps she  knew. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  LAST  ACT  OF  " GIRLS*  LOVE*' 

THE  wail  of  grief  that  echoed  through  New  York  for 
Rose  Doran,  suddenly  snatched  from  life  in  the  prime 
of  her  beauty,  sounded  in  the  ears  of  Max  a  warning 
note.  Her  memory  must  not  be  smirched.  And  then 
again  came  the  temptation.  As  she  lay  dying  he  had 
decided  what  to  do.  But  now  that  she  was  dead,  now 
that  letters  and  telegrams  by  the  hundred,  and  visits  of 
sympathy,  and  columns  in  the  newspapers,  were  making 
him  realize  more  and  more  her  place  in  the  world  she 
had  left,  and  the  height  of  the  pedestal  on  which  the 
Doran  family  stood,  the  question  repeated  itself  insis- 
tently: Why  not  reconsider? 

Max  had  thought  from  time  to  time  that  he  knew  what 
temptation  was;  but  now  he  saw  that  he  had  never  known. 
His  safeguard  used  to  be  in  calling  up  his  father's  image 
to  stand  by  him,  in  listening  for  the  tones  of  a  beloved 
voice  which  had  the  power  to  calm  his  hot  temper,  or 
hold  him  back  from  some  impetuous  act  of  which  he  would 
have  been  ashamed  later.  He  had  seemed  to  hear  the 
voice  as  Rose  slept  her  last  sleep,  under  her  white  veil, 
but  later  it  was  silent.  It  left  him  to  himself,  and  some- 
times he  was  even  persuaded  that  it  joined  with  the 
voice  of  Rose,  whispering  that  siren  word,  "Reconsider." 

34 


THE  LAST  ACT  OF  "GIRLS'  LOVE"        35 

Jack  Doran  had  loved  Rose.  Perhaps  on  the  other 
side  of  the  valley  he  had  forgiven  her,  and  wished  above 
all  other  things  that  her  memory  should  remain  bright. 
If  Max  reconsidered,  it  would  all  be  easy.  No  one  would 
be  surprised  if  he  took  long  leave  and  went  abroad. 
No  one  would  think  it  strange  or  suspicious  if  a  girl 
"Cousin"  should  later  appear  on  the  scene:  a  Miss  Doran 
of  whom  no  one  had  ever  heard,  who  had  been  educated 
abroad,  and  who,  because  she  had  lost  her  parents,  was 
to  take  up  life  in  America.  Or  maybe  it  needn't  even 
come  to  that,  in  case  he  found  the  girl.  She  might  be 
married.  She  might  prefer  to  remain  where  she  was, 
with  plenty  of  money  from  her  distant  relations,  the 
Dorans,  of  whose  existence  she  would  be  informed  for 
the  first  time.  There  would  be  no  difficulty  in  arranging 
this.  The  one  real  difficulty  was  that  Max's  soul  would 
be  in  prison.  The  bars  would  be  of  gold,  and  he  would 
have  in  his  cell  everything  to  make  him  and  his  friends 
think  it  a  palace.  But  it  would  be  a  prison  cell,  all  the 
same,  for  ever  and  ever;  and  at  night  when  he  and  his 
soul  were  alone  together,  looking  into  each  other's  eyes, 
he  would  know  that  from  behind  the  door  he  had  locked 
upon  himself  there  was  no  escape. 

There  were  moments,  and  whole  hours  together,  when 
he  said  with  a  kind  of  sudden  rage  against  the  responsi- 
bility thrown  on  him,  "I'll  take  Rose's  advice  —  the  last 
words  she  ever  spoke."  But  then,  in  some  still  depth 
far  under  the  turmoil  of  his  tempted  spirit,  he  knew  that 
his  first  decision  was  the  only  one  possible  for  honour  or 
even  for  happiness.  And  the  day  after  the  funeral  he 
made  it  irrevocable  by  telling  Edwin  Reeves  a  wild  story 


36  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

that  had  come  to  him  in  a  strange  moment  of  something 
like  exaltation.  It  had  come  as  he  stood  bareheaded 
by  the  grave  where  Rose  had  just  been  laid  to  sleep 
beside  Jack  Doran;  and  in  that  moment  a  lie  for  their 
sakes  seemed  nobler  than  the  truth  that  would  hurt  them. 
More  and  more,  as  he  thought  of  it  on  his  way  back  to 
the  house  which  had  once  been  "home,"  and  as  the 
possibilities  developed  in  his  mind,  with  elaborations  of 
the  tale,  this  lie  appealed  to  his  chivalry.  Everybody 
might  hear  it  without  fear  that  Jack  or  Rose  would  be 
blamed.  That  was  the  great  advantage.  There  need  be 
no  whisperings  and  mysteries.  And  once  the  tale  was 
told,  there  would  be  no  going  back  from  it. 

The  story  which  fixed  his  imagination  and  inspired  him 
to  martyrdom  might  have  made  a  plot  for  some  old- 
fashioned  melodrama,  but  Max  began  to  realize  that 
there  was  nothing  in  fiction  so  incredible  as  the  things 
which  happen  in  life:  things  one  reads  about  any  day 
in  newspapers,  yet  which  in  a  novel  would  be  laughed  at 
by  critics.  He  would  say  to  Edwin  Reeves  that,  shortly 
before  her  death,  Rose  had  learned  through  the  dying 
confession  of  a  Frenchwoman  who  had  nursed  her  in 
childbirth  that  her  girl  baby  had  been  changed  for  a 
boy,  born  about  the  same  time  to  a  relative  of  the  nurse; 
that  hearing  this  story  she  had  intended  to  write  Max, 
and  ask  him  to  go  to  France  to  prove  or  disprove  its 
truth,  but  that  she  had  been  struck  down  before  sum- 
moning courage  to  break  the  news.  Edwin  Reeves  would 
then  understand  Rose's  anxiety  to  see  Max;  and  he  would 
keep  the  secret,  at  least  until  the  girl  was  found.  As 
for  what  ought  to  be  done  in  the  case  of  not  finding  her, 


THE  LAST  ACT  OF  "GIRLS'   LOVE"        37 

or  learning  without  doubt  that  she  was  dead,  Max 
thought  he  might  take  the  lawyer's  advice  as  a  friend 
of  the  Dorans,  as  a  legal  man,  and  as  a  man  of  the  world. 
Perhaps,  if  in  Edwin  Reeves's  judgment  silence  would 
in  that  event  be  justified,  Max  might  accept  this  verdict. 

There  was  that  one  grain  of  hope  for  the  future  —  if 
it  could  be  called  hope.  But  there  was  another  person 
besides  Edwin  Reeves  and  Edwin  Reeves's  son  (Max's 
best  friend  of  old  days)  who  must  be  told  at  once  how 
little  claim  he  had  to  the  Doran  name  and  fortune.  That 
person  was  Billie  Brookton. 

Max  had  dimly  expected  opposition  from  Edwin  Reeves, 
whose  advice  might  be  what  Rose  Doran 's  had  been: 
to  give  money,  and  let  everything  remain  as  it  had  been. 
It  was  somewhat  to  his  surprise  that  the  lawyer,  after 
listening  in  silence,  agreed  that  there  was  just  one  thing 
to  do,  if  the  girl  still  lived.  Grant  (who  was  with  him 
in  their  private  office  by  Max's  wish),  though  more 
demonstrative,  more  openly  sympathetic,  held  the  same 
opinion. 

Max  ought  to  have  been  glad  of  this  encouragement, 
but  somehow,  shaming  himself  for  it,  he  felt  a  dull  sense 
of  injury,  especially  where  Grant  was  concerned.  Grant 
exclaimed  that  it  was  horribly  hard  lines,  and  that  old 
Max  was  the  splendid  fellow  everybody  had  always  be- 
lieved him  to  be.  Lots  of  chaps  would  have  been  mean, 
and  stuck  to  the  name  and  money,  though  of  course  no 
honourable  man  could  do  that.  Grant  quite  saw  how 
Max  felt,  and  would  have  to  act  in  the  same  way  himself, 
no  matter  what  it  cost.  If  the  truth  had  to  come  out, 
every  one  would  say  he'd  behaved  like  a  hero  —  that  was 


38  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

one  comfort;  but,  as  Edwin  Reeves  reminded  them  both, 
Max  might  be  rewarded  for  his  noble  resolve  by  learning 
that  there  was  no  need  to  make  the  sensational  story 
public.  If  the  girl  had  died  or  could  not  be  found,  it 
would  be  —  in  Mr.  Reeves's  opinion  —  foolishly  quixotic 
to  rouse  sleeping  dogs,  and  ruin  himself,  to  put  money 
in  the  pockets  of  the  Reynold  Dorans,  who  had  more  than 
they  wanted  already. 

"You'll  feel  like  getting  leave  to  run  over  to  France,  I 
suppose,"  said  the  lawyer,  "though  of  course  the  search 
might  be  made  for  you  if  you  prefer. " 

"I  prefer  to  go  myself,"  Max  decided  quietly. 

"Why  not  let  me  go  with  you?"  Grant  suggested, 
with  a  certain  eagerness  which  it  seemed  to  Max  he  tried 
to  suppress,  rather  than  to  show  as  a  proof  of  friendship. 
"The  governor  could  spare  me  for  a  while,  I  expect, 
and  it  wouldn't  be  quite  such  a  gloomy  errand  as  if  you 
were  alone.  I'd  be  glad  to  do  it  for  you,  dear  old  boy, 
honestly  I  would." 

Yes,  he  would  be  glad.  Max  saw  that.  And  instead 
of  feeling  drawn  nearer  to  Grant  Reeves,  he  felt  sud- 
denly miles  away.  They  had  drifted  apart  since  Max  had 
joined  his  regiment  in  the  West  and  Grant  had  become 
a  partner  with  his  father.  Now  Max  told  himself  that 
he  had  never  known  Grant:  that  as  men  they  were  so 
far  from  one  another  he  could  really  never  know  him; 
and  he  wondered  at  the  impulse  which  had  made  him 
wish  Grant  to  hear  the  story  with  Edwin. 

"But  suppose  it's  all  true  and  you  find  the  girl  over 
on  the  other  side  somewhere?"  Grant  went  on,  when 
Max  had  answered  that  the  search  might  be  long,  and 


THE  LAST  ACT  OF  "GIRLS'  LOVE"        39 

it  would  be  better  for  him  to  make  it  alone.  "What 
will  you  do?  Hadn't  my  mother  better  fetch  her? 
Mother's  over  in  Paris  now,  you  know,  so  it  would  be 
less  trouble.  You  mightn't  want  to  bring  her  back  your- 
self, unless,  of  course " 

"Unless  —  what?"  Max  wanted  to  know. 

"Well,  you're  not  related  to  the  girl,  and  you're  about 
the  same  age.  She'll  naturally  look  upon  you  as  a  hero, 
a  deliverer,  and  all  that,  if  she's  a  normal  woman.  If 
it  were  in  a  book  instead  of  real  life,  the  end  would 
be " 

"Different  from  what  it  will  be  with  us,"  Max  cut 
him  short.  "Don't  let's  speak  or  think  of  anything 
like  that." 

"  It  only  occurred  to  me, "  Grant  excused  himself  mildly, 
"  that  if  —  nothing  like  that  did  happen,  you  mightn't 
want  to  come  back  to  this  country  yourself,  for  a  while. 
It's  a  queer  sort  of  case.  And  you  see  you  went  through 
West  Point  and  got  your  lieutenancy  as  Max  Doran. 
If  you  weren't  Max  Doran,  but  somebody  else,  I  wonder 
what  they  would  do  about " 

"I  shouldn't  give  them  the  trouble  of  doing  anything, " 
said  Max  quietly.  "I'd  resign  from  the  army.  But 
there'll  be  other  doors  open,  I  hope.  I  don't  mean  to 
fade  out  of  existence  because  I'm  not  a  Doran  or  a  fellow 
with  money.  I'll  try  and  make  something  out  of  another 
name. " 

"And  you'll  succeed,  of  course,"  Edwin  Reeves  assured 
him.  "I  suppose  it  was  in  Grant's  mind  that  if  this 
extraordinary  story  proved  to  be  true,  and  you  should  give 
up  your  name  and  your  fortune  to  John  and  Rose  Doran's 


40  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

daughter,  why  you  would  in  a  way  be  giving  up  your 
country,  too.  You  say  that  the  confession  Mrs.  Doran 
received  was  from  a  Frenchwoman:  that  this  person 
took  the  child  of  a  relative,  and  exchanged  it  for  the  Do- 
ran  baby.  If  we  are  to  believe  that,  it  makes  you  of 
French  blood  as  well  as  French  birth.  Grant  supposed, 
perhaps,  that  this  fact  might  change  your  point  of 
view. " 

Max  had  not  thought  of  it,  and  resented  the  suggestion 
which  the  two  seemed  to  be  making:  that  he  would  no 
longer  have  the  right  to  consider  himself  an  American. 
"But  I  don't  feel  French,"  he  exclaimed.  "I  don't  see 
how  I  ever  can." 

"Yet  you  speak  French  almost  like  a  Frenchman," 
said  Grant.  "We  used  to  tease  you  about  it  in  school. 
Do  you  remember?" 

Did  he  remember?  And  Jack  Doran  had  called  him 
"Frenchy. "  Always,  it  seemed,  he  had  been  marching 
blindly  toward  this  moment. 

Nothing  was  settled  at  the  end  of  the  talk,  except 
that  the  secret  was  to  be  kept  for  the  present.  And 
Max  learned  that  Rose  had  made  an  informal  will,  leaving 
him  all  her  jewellery,  with  the  request  that  it  should 
be  valued  by  experts  and  sold,  he  taking  the  money  to 
"use  as  he  thought  fit."  She  had  made  this  will  years 
ago,  it  seemed,  directly  after  Jack  Doran's  death,  while 
her  conscience  was  awake.  Max  guessed  what  had  been 
in  her  mind.  She  had  wanted  him  to  have  something 
of  his  own,  in  case  he  ever  lost  his  supposed  heritage. 
He  was  grateful  to  her  because,  not  loving  him,  she  had 
nevertheless  thought  of  his  welfare  and  tried  to  provide 


THE  LAST  ACT  OF  "GIRLS'  LOVE"        41 

for  it.  Mr.  Reeves  knew  something  about  the  value  of 
Rose's  jewels.  She  had  not  had  many,  he  reminded  Max. 
Once,  soon  after  her  marriage,  and  while  she  was  still 
abroad,  all  her  wedding  presents  and  gifts  from  her 
husband  had  been  stolen  in  a  train  journey.  Since 
then,  she  seemed  to  have  picked  up  the  idea  that  a 
beautiful  woman  ought  not  to  let  herself  be  outshone  by 
her  own  jewels.  She  had  cared  for  dress  more  than  for 
jewellery,  and,  with  the  exception  of  a  rope  of  pearls, 
her  ornaments  had  not  been  worth  a  grea*  deal.  Still, 
they  ought  to  sell  for  at  least  twelve  or  fifteen  thousand 
dollars,  counting  everything,  and  two  or  three  rather  par- 
ticularly fine  rings  which  Jack  had  given  her. 

"I  think  she  must  have  meant  me  to  except  those 
from  the  things  to  be  sold, "  said  Max.  "  She  would  have 
known  I'd  never  let  them  go. " 

His  first  impulse  after  that  interview  with  the  Reeveses 
was  to  dash  out  West  and  see  Billie,  to  tell  her  that  some- 
thing had  happened  which  might  make  a  great  differ- 
ence in  his  circumstances,  and  to  give  her  back  her 
freedom.  But  when  he  had  stopped  to  think,  he  said 
to  himself  that  it  wouldn't  be  fair  to  go.  Face  to  face, 
it  would  be  hard  for  Billie  to  take  him  at  his  word,  and 
he  did  not  want  to  make  it  hard.  Instead,  he  wrote, 
telling  her  that  he  was  getting  leave  to  go  abroad  on 
important  business  —  business  on  which  the  whole  future 
would  depend.  Perhaps  (owing  to  circumstances  which 
couldn't  be  explained  yet,  till  he  learned  more  about 
them  himself)  he  might  be  a  poor  man  instead  of  a 
rich  one.  Meanwhile,  she  mustn't  consider  herself 
bound.  Later,  when  he  knew  what  awaited  him,  if 


42  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE   LEGION 

things  righted  themselves  he  would  come  to  her  again, 
and  ask  what  he  had  asked  before.  In  any  case,  he 
would  explain. 

It  was  rather  a  good  letter,  the  version  which  Max 
finally  let  stand,  after  having  torn  up  half  a  dozen  partly 
covered  sheets  of  paper.  His  love  was  there  for  the  girl 
to  see,  and  he  could  not  help  feeling  that,  possibly  —  just 
possibly  —  she  might  write  or  even  telegraph,  saying, 
"I  refuse  to  be  set  free." 

While  he  waited,  he  engaged  his  passage  to  Cherbourg 
on  a  ship  that  was  to  sail  at  the  end  of  the  week.  That 
would  give  Billie's  answer  time  to  come.  Or  —  just 
madly  supposing  she  cared  enough  to  have  an  understudy 
play  her  part  for  a  few  days  —  it  would  allow  time  for  a 
wonderful  surprise,  and  the  greatest  proof  of  love  a  girl 
could  give  a  man. 

There  was  no  telegram,  but  the  day  before  he  was  to 
sail  an  envelope  with  Billie  Brockton's  pretty  scrawl 
on  it  was  put  into  his  hand.  He  opened  it  carefully, 
because  it  seemed  sacrilege  to  tear  what  she  had  touched, 
or  break  the  purple  seal,  with  the  two  bees  on  it,  which 
she  used  instead  of  initials  or  a  monogram.  The  per- 
fume which  came  from  the  paper  was  her  own  special 
perfume,  named  in  honour  of  her  success  and  popular- 
ity — "  Girls'  Love. "  Max  remembered  Billie's  tell- 
ing him  once  that  it  cost  "outsiders"  five  dollars 
an  ounce,  because  there  were  amber  and  lots  of 
wonderful,  mysterious  things  in  it;  but  she  got  it  for 
nothing. 

"How  good,  how  noble  you  are!"  were  her  first  words; 
and  Max's  heart  leaped.  This  divine  creature,  who 


THE  LAST  ACT  OF  "GIRL'S  LOVE"        43 

could  have  her  pick  of  men,  was  going  to  say  .  .  .  but 
as  his  eyes  travelled  fast  from  line  to  line,  the  beating 
of  his  heart  slowed  down. 


"  Come  back  to  me  when  this  horrible  business  trouble 
is  over,  and  ask  me  again,  as  you  say  you  will.  You'll 
find  me  waiting,  oh,  so  impatiently!  for  I  do  love  you. 
Whatever  happens,  Max  —  dear,  handsome  Max  —  you 
will  be  the  one  great  romance  of  my  life.  I  can  never 
forget  you,  or  those  blue  eyes  of  yours,  the  day  you  told 
me  you  cared.  They  will  haunt  me  always.  Oh,  how 
I  wish  I  were  rich  enough  for  both  of  us,  so  that  we  might 
be  happy,  even  in  case  of  the  worst,  and  you  lose  your 
money!  But  I  don't  know  how  to  keep  the  wretched 
stuff  when  I  have  it.  And  though  I  make  a  lot  now,  I'm 
not  strong,  and  who  knows  how  long  my  vogue  may  last? 
We  poor  actress  girls,  who  depend  on  our  health  and  the 
fickle  public,  have  to  think  of  these  sordid  things.  It  is, 
oh,  so  sad  for  us!  No  woman  who  hasn't  known  the 
struggle  herself  can  realize.  Do  hurry  back,  with  good 
news  for  both,  and  save  me  from  a  dreadful  man  who  is 
persecuting  me  to  marry  him.  I  met  him  in  such  an 
odd  way  the  last  time  I  was  here  in  Chicago,  but  I  didn't 
tell  you  the  story  of  the  adventure,  because  it  would 
only  have  worried  you.  Besides,  you  made  me  forget 
every  one  and  every  thing -— you  did  truly,  Max!  But 
he  frightens  me  now,  he  is  so  fearfully  rich,  and  so  strong 
and  insisting;  and  somehow  he's  got  round  auntie. 
She's  so  silly;  she  thinks  you  oughtn't  to  have  left  me  as 
you  did,  though  of  course  you  had  to.  I  understood,  if 
she  doesn't.  She's  only  a  foolish  old  lady,  but  she  does 
fuss  so  about  this  man!  If  you  don't  rescue  me,  he  may 
be  my  fate.  I  feel  it.  Dear  Max,  I  wait  for  you.  I 
want  you.  BILLJE. 

"P.  S.     Please  wire  when  you  know" 


44  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

As  he  read  the  letter  through  for  the  second  time,  he 
could  hear  through  the  open  window  of  his  room  a  woman's 
voice  singing  one  of  Gaeta's  songs,  the  one  most  popular: 
' '  Forever  —  never !  Who  knows  ? ' ' 

The  words  mingled  themselves  with  the  words  of  the 
letter:  "Comeback.  Bring  good  news.  Forever  —  never! 
Who  knows?"  And  the  song  was  from  the  last  act  of 
"Girls' Love." 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   UPPER   BERTH 

WHEN  he  had  learned  at  the  village  of  La  Tour  that 
Doctor  Lefebre  had  left  the  place  long  ago,  to  practise 
in  Paris,  Max  went  there,  and  found  Lefebre  without 
difficulty.  He  was  now,  at  fifty,  a  well-known  man, 
still  young  looking,  but  with  a  somewhat  melancholy  face, 
and  the  long  eyelids  that  mean  Jewish  ancestry.  When 
he  had  listened  to  Max's  story  he  said,  with  a  thoughtful 
smile:  "Do  you  see,  it  is  to  you  I  owe  my  success?  I 
have  never  repented  what  I  did  for  Madame.  Still  less 
do  I  repent  now,  having  met  you.  I  gained  advantages 
for  myself  that  I  could  not  otherwise  have  had;  and  to- 
day proves  that  I  gave  them  to  one  who  has  known  how 
to  profit  by  every  gift.  The  other  —  the  girl  —  would  not 
have  known  how.  There  was  something  strange  about 
the  child,  something  not  right,  not  normal.  I  have  often 
wondered  what  she  has  become.  But  it  is  better  for  you 
not  to  think  of  her.  Fate  has  shut  a  door  between  you 
two.  Don't  open  it.  That  is  the  advice,  Monsieur,  of 
the  man  who  brought  you  into  this  very  extraordinary 
world." 

Max  thanked  him,  but  answered  that,  for  good  or  ill, 
he  had  made  up  his  mind.  Doctor  Lefebre  shrugged 
his  shoulders  with  an  air  of  resigned  regret,  and  told  what 

45 


46  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

little  he  knew  of  the  Delatours  since  he  had  sent  the  young 
woman  off  to  Algeria  with  the  baby.  The  first  thing 
he  had  heard  was  four  or  five  years  after,  when  he  paid  a 
visit  to  La  Tour,  and  was  told  that  Maxime  Delatour  had 
left  the  army  and  settled  permanently  in  Algeria.  Then, 
no  more  news  for  several  years,  until  one  day  a  letter  had 
been  forwarded  to  him  in  Paris  from  his  old  address  at 
La  Tour.  It  was  from  Madame  Delatour,  dated  "Hotel 
Pension  Delatour,  Alger,"  asking  guardedly  if  he  would 
tell  her  where  she  might  write  to  the  American  lady 
whose  child  had  been  born  at  the  chateau.  "The  lady 
who  had  been  kind  to  her  and  her  baby."  She  would 
like  to  send  news  of  little  Josephine,  in  whom  the  lady 
might  still  take  an  interest.  Madame  Delatour  had 
added  in  a  postscript  that  she  and  her  husband  were 
keeping  a  small  hotel  in  Algiers,  which  they  had  taken 
with  "some  money  that  had  come  to  them,"  but  were 
not  doing  as  well  as  they  could  wish.  Doctor  Lefebre, 
feeling  sure  that  she  meant  to  make  trouble,  had  not 
answered  the  letter;  but  even  had  he  answered,  he  could 
only  have  said  that  Mrs.  Doran  lived  in  New  York.  He 
knew  no  more  himself,  and  had  never  tried  to  find  out. 
Since  then  he  had  heard  nothing  of  the  Delatour  family. 
That  same  night  Max  left  Paris  for  Marseilles,  and  the 
next  morning  he  was  on  board  the  General  Morel  starting 
for  Algiers.  For  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  had  to  think 
of  economy:  for  though  Rose's  legacy  had  amounted  to 
something  over  fifteen  thousand  dollars,  already  it  was 
nearly  disposed  of.  He  determined  never  again  to  touch 
a  Doran  dollar  for  his  own  personal  use,  unless  he  dis- 
covered that  the  rightful  owner  was  dead.  He  had  left 


THE  UPPER  BERTH  47 

Fort  Ellsworth  owing  a  good  deal  here  and  there;  for 
tradesmen  were  slow  about  sending  bills  to  such  a  valu- 
able customer.  Now,  however,  he  felt  that  he  must  pay 
his  debts  with  the  money  that  was  his  own;  and  settling 
them  would  make  an  immense  hole  in  his  small  inheri- 
tance. There,  for  instance,  were  the  pearls  and  the  ring 
he  had  bought  for  Billie  Brookton.  Then*  cost  alone  was 
nine  thousand  dollars,  and  even  if  Billie  should  offer  to 
give  them  back,  he  meant  to  ask  her  to  keep  them  for 
remembrance.  But  she  would  not  offer.  He  would 
never  have  admitted  to  himself  that  he  knew  she  would 
not;  yet,  since  receiving  her  letter,  he  had  known.  If 
he  had  by  and  by  to  tell  Billie  that  he  was  to  be  a  poor 
man,  she  would  make  some  charming  excuse  for  not 
sending  back  his  presents.  Or  else  she  would  not  refer 
to  them  at  all.  Whatever  the  future  might  bring,  it 
seemed  to  Max  that  he  had  lost  youth's  bright  vision  of 
romance.  There  was  no  such  girl  in  the  world  as  the  girl 
he  had  dreamed.  The  letter  had  shown  him  that  —  the 
one  letter  he  had  ever  had  from  Billie  Brookton. 

After  his  talk  with  Doctor  Lefebre  the  change  in  his 
life  became  for  Max  more  intimately  real  than  it  had  been 
before.  The  fact  that  he  was  travelling  second-class, 
though  an  insignificant  thing  in  itself,  brought  it  home  to 
him  in  a  curious,  irritating  way.  He  felt  that  he  must 
be  a  weak,  spoiled  creature,  not  worthy  to  call  himself 
a  soldier,  because  little,  unfamiliar  shabbinesses  and  incon- 
veniences disgusted  him.  He  remembered  how  he  had 
revelled  in  his  one  trip  abroad  with  Rose  and  some  friends 
of  theirs  the  year  before  he  went  to  West  Point.  They 
had  motored  from  Paris  to  the  Riviera,  and  stayed  in 


48  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

Nice.  Then  they  had  come  back  to  Marseilles,  and  had 
taken  the  best  cabins  on  board  a  great  liner,  for  Egypt. 
What  fun  he  and  the  other  boy  of  the  party  had  had! 
He  felt  now  that,  however  things  turned  out,  the  fun  of 
life  was  over. 

If  the  girl,  Josephine  Delatour,  lived,  he  would  have 
to  leave  the  army;  that  was  clear.  Grant  Reeves  had 
shown  him  why.  And  it  would  be  hard,  for  he  loved 
soldiering.  He  could  think  willingly  of  no  other  profes- 
sion or  even  business.  Yet  somewhere,  somehow,  he 
would  have  to  begin  at  the  bottom  and  work  up.  Besides, 
there  were  his  real  parents  to  be  thought  of,  if  they  were 
still  alive.  Max  felt  that  perhaps  he  was  hard  —  or  worse 
still,  snobbish  —  not  to  feel  any  instinctive  affection 
for  them.  His  mother  had  sold  him,  in  order  that  she 
might  have  money  to  go  to  her  husband,  whom  she  loved 
so  much  better  than  her  child.  Well,  at  least  she  had  a 
heart!  That  was  something.  And  if  the  pair  still  kept 
a  little  hotel,  what  of  that?  Was  he  such  a  mean  wretch 
as  to  be  ashamed  because  he  was  the  son  of  a  small 
hotelkeeper?  Max  began  spying  out  in  himself  his 
faults  and  weaknesses,  which,  while  he  was  happy  and 
fortunate,  he  had  never  suspected.  And  now  and  then 
he  caught  the  words  running  through  his  mind:  "If 
only  she  is  dead,  the  whole  thing  will  be  no  more  than 
a  bad  dream. "  What  a  cad  he  was !  he  thought.  And 
even  if  she  were  dead,  nothing  could  ever  be  as  it  had  been. 
Jack  Doran  was  not  his  father,  and  he  would  have  no 
right  to  anything  that  had  been  Jack's,  not  even  his 
love.  If  he  kept  the  money  it  would  not  make  him 
happy.  He  could  never  be  happy  again. 


THE  UPPER  BERTH  49 

It  was  in  this  mood  that  he  went  on  board  the  General 
Morel,  the  oldest  and  worst-built  ship  of  her  line.  She 
was  carrying  a  crowd  of  second-class  passengers  for  Al- 
giers, and  the  worried  stewards  had  no  time  to  attend 
to  him.  He  found  his  own  cabin,  by  the  number  on 
his  ticket,  groping  through  a  long,  dark  corridor,  which 
smelt  of  food  and  bilge  water.  The  stateroom  was  as 
gloomy  as  the  passage  leading  to  it,  and  he  congratu- 
lated himself  that  at  least  he  had  the  lower  berth. 

His  roommate,  however,  had  been  in  before  him,  and 
either  through  ignorance  or  impudence  had  annexed  Max's 
bunk  for  himself.  On  the  roughly  laundered  cover- 
let was  a  miniature  brown  kitbag,  conspicuously  new 
looking.  It  had  been  carelessly  left  open,  or  had  sprung 
open  of  itself,  being  too  tightly  packed,  and  as  Max  pre- 
pared to  change  its  place,  muttering,  "Cheek  of  the  fellow!" 
he  could  not  help  seeing  two  photographs  in  silver  frames 
lying  on  top  of  the  bag's  other  contents.  Both  portraits 
were  of  men.  One  was  an  officer  in  the  uniform  of  the 
French  army,  with  the  typical  soldier  look  which  gives 
likeness  and  kin  to  fighting  men  in  all  races  of  the  world. 
The  other  photograph  Max  recognized  at  a  glance  as  that 
of  Richard  Stanton,  the  explorer. 

Queer,  Max  thought,  as  he  lifted  the  bag,  open  as  it 
was,  to  the  upper  berth.  Queer,  that  some  little  bour- 
geois Frenchman,  journeying  second-class  from  Mar- 
seilles to  Algiers,  should  have  as  a  treasure  in  his  hand- 
baggage  the  portrait  of  a  celebrated  and  extremely 
pugnacious  Englishman  who  had  got  the  newspapers  down 
on  him  two  or  three  years  ago  for  a  wild  interview  he  had 
given  against  the  entente  cordiale.  Max  remembered  it 


50  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

and  the  talk  about  it  in  the  officers'  mess  at  Fort  Ells- 
worth, just  after  he  joined  his  regiment.  However,  the 
Frenchman's  photographs  were  his  own  business;  and  Max 
relented  not  at  all  toward  the  cheeky  brute  because  he 
had  a  portrait  of  the  great  Richard  Stanton  in  his  bag. 
This  was  the  sort  of  thing  one  had  to  expect  when  one 
travelled  second-class!  A  few  weeks  before  he  would 
have  thought  it  impossible  as  well  as  disgusting  to  bunk 
with  a  stranger  whom  he  had  never  seen;  but  as  he  said 
to  himself,  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders  which  tried  to 
be  Spartan,  "Misfortune  makes  strange  bedfellows." 
Max  was  disciplining  himself  to  put  up  with  hardship? 
of  all  sorts  which  would  probably  become  a  part  of 
everyday  life.  His  own  hand-luggage,  a  suitcase  with 
his  name  marked  on  it,  had  been  dumped  down  by 
some  steward  in  the  corridor,  and  he  carried  it  into  the 
stateroom  himself,  pushing  it  far  under  the  lower  berth 
with  a  rather  vicious  kick.  As  rain  was  falling  in  torrents, 
and  a  bitter  wind  blowing,  he  kept  on  his  heavy  overcoat, 
and  went  out  of  the  cabin  leaving  no  trace  of  his  owner- 
ship there  except  the  hidden  suitcase.  Perhaps  on  that 
kick  which  had  sent  it  out  of  sight  the  shaping  of  Max 
Doran's  whole  future  life  depended. 

On  the  damp  deck  and  in  the  dingy  "salle"  of 
the  second-class  Max  wondered,  with  stifled  repulsion, 
which  among  the  fat  Germans,  hook-nosed  Algerian 
Jews,  dignified  Arab  merchants,  and  common-looking 
Frenchmen,  was  to  share  his  ridiculously  small  cabin. 
Most  of  them  appeared  to  be  half  sick  already,  in  fearful 
anticipation  of  the  rocking  they  were  doomed  to  get  in 
the  ancient  tub  once  she  steamed  out  of  the  harbour  and 


THE  UPPER  BERTH  51 

into  the  face  of  the  gale.  In  the  "gang, "  as  he  called  it, 
there  was  visible  but  one  person  in  what  Max  Doran  had 
been  accustomed  to  think  of  as  his  own  "rank."  That 
person  was  a  girl,  and  despite  the  gloom  which  shut  him 
into  himself,  he  glanced  at  her  now  and  then  with  curi- 
osity. It  seemed  unaccountable  that  such  a  girl  should 
be  travelling  apparently  alone,  and  especially  second-class. 

The  first  thing  that  caught  his  attention  was  the 
colour  of  her  hair  as  she  stood  with  her  back  to  him,  on 
deck.  She  was  wrapped  in  a  long,  dark  blue  coat,  with 
well-cut  lines  which  showed  the  youthfulness  of  her  tall, 
slim  figure,  as  tall  and  slim  as  Billie  Brockton's,  but 
more  alertly  erect,  more  boyish.  On  her  head  was  a 
small,  close-fitting  toque  of  the  same  dark  blue  as  her 
coat;  and  between  this  cap  and  the  turned-up  collar 
bunched  out  a  thick  roll  of  yellow  hair.  It  was  not  as 
yellow  as  Billie's,  yet  at  first  glance  it  reminded  him  of 
hers,  with  a  sick  longing  for  lost  beauty  and  romance. 
Seeing  the  delicate  figure,  cloaked  in  the  same  blue  which 
Billie  affected  for  travelling,  he  thought  what  it  would 
be  like  to  have  the  girl  with  the  yellow  hair  turn,  to 
show  Billie's  face  radiant  with  love  for  him,  to  hear  her 
flutey  voice  cry:  "Max,  I  couldn't  bear  it  without  you! 
Forget  what  I  said  in  that  horrid  letter.  I  didn't  mean  a 
word  of  it.  I've  given  up  everything  to  be  your  wife. 
Take  me!" 

Soon  the  girl  did  turn  from  the  rain  blowing  into  her 
face,  and  that  face  was  of  an  entirely  different  type  from 
Billie's.  Seeing  it,  after  that  attack  upon  his  imagina- 
tion, was  a  sharp  relief  to  Max.  Still  he  did  not  lose 
interest.  The  girl's  hair  was  not  so  yellow  where  it  grew 


52  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

on  her  head  and  framed  the  rather  thin  oval  of  her 
face,  as  in  the  thick-rolled  mass  behind,  golden  still  with 
childhood's  gold.  Except  for  her  tall  slenderness  she 
was  not  in  the  least  like  Billie  Brookton;  and  she  would 
have  no  great  pretension  to  beauty  had  it  not  been 
for  a  pair  of  long,  gray,  thick-lashed  eyes  which  looked 
out  softly  and  sweetly  on  the  world.  Her  nose  was  too 
small  and  her  mouth  too  large,  but  the  delicate  cutting 
of  the  nostrils  and  the  bow  of  the  coral-pink  upper  lip 
had  fascination  and  a  sensitiveness  that  was  somehow 
pathetic.  She  held  her  head  high,  on  a  long  and  lovely 
throat,  which  gave  her  a  look  of  courage,  but  a  forced 
courage,  not  the  christening  gift  of  godmother  nature. 
That  sort  of  girl,  Max  reflected,  was  meant  to  be  cherished 
and  taken  care  of.  And  why  was  she  not  taken  care  of? 
He  wondered  if  she  had  run  away  from  home,  in  her 
dainty  prettiness,  to  be  jostled  by  this  unappreciative, 
second-class  crowd?  She  was  brave  enough,  though,  de- 
spite her  look  of  flower-delicacy,  to  stop  on  deck  long 
after  the  ship  had  steamed  out  from  the  comparatively 
quiet,  rock-bound  harbour,  and  plunged  into  the  tossing 
sea.  At  last  a  big  wave  drove  the  girl  away,  and  Max 
did  not  see  her  again  until  dinner  time.  He  came  late 
and  reluctantly  into  the  close-smelling  dining-saloon, 
and  found  her  already  seated  at  the  long  table.  Her 
place  was  nearly  opposite  his,  and  as  he  sat  down  she 
looked  up  with  a  quick,  interested  look  which  had  girlish 
curiosity  in  it,  and  a  complete  lack  of  self-consciousness 
that  was  perhaps  characteristic.  Evidently,  as  he  had 
separated  her  in  his  mind  from  the  rabble,  wondering 
about  her,  so  she  had  separated  him  and  wondered  also. 


THE  UPPER  BERTH  53 

She  was  too  far  away  for  Max  to  speak,  even  if  he  had 
dared;  but  a  moment  later  a  big  man  who  squeezed 
himself  in  between  table  and  revolving  chair,  next  to 
the  girl,  made  an  excuse  to  ask  for  the  salt,  and  begin  a 
conversation.  He  did  this  in  a  matter-of-fact,  bourgeois 
way,  however,  which  not  even  a  prude  or  a  snob  could 
think  offensive.  And  apparently  the  girl  was  far  from 
being  a  prude  or  a  snob.  She  answered  with  a  soft, 
girlish  charm  of  manner  which  gave  the  impression  that 
she  was  generously  kind  of  heart.  Then  something  that 
the  man  said  made  her  flush  up  and  start  with  surprise. 

From  that  moment  on  the  two  were  absorbed  in  each 
other.  Could  it  be,  Max  asked  himself,  that  the  big, 
rough  fellow  and  the  daintily  bred  girl  had  found  an 
acquaintance  in  common?  There  seemed  to  be  a  gulf 
between  them  as  wide  as  the  world,  yet  evidently  they 
had  hit  upon  some  subject  which  interested  them  both. 
Through  the  clatter  of  dishes  Max  caught  words,  or 
fragments  of  sentences,  all  spoken  in  French.  The  man 
had  a  common  accent,  but  the  girl's  was  charming.  She 
had  a  peculiarly  sweet,  soft  voice,  that  somehow  matched 
the  sweetness  and  softness  of  the  long,  straight-lashed 
eyes  under  the  low,  level  brows,  so  delicately  yet  clearly 
pencilled.  Max  guessed  at  first  that  she  was  English; 
then  from  some  slight  inflection  of  tone,  wondered  if  she 
were  Irish  instead.  It  was  a  name  which  sounded  like 
"Sidi-bel- Abbes"  that  made  the  girl  start  and  blush, 
and  turn  to  her  neighbour  with  sudden  interest.  Again 
and  again  they  mentioned  "  Sidi-bel- Abbes, "  which  meant 
nothing  for  Max  until  he  heard  the  girl  say  "La  Legion 
Etrangere. "  Immediately  the  recollection  of  a  book  he 


54  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

had  read  flashed  into  Max's  brain.  Why,  yes,  of  course, 
Sidi-bel-Abbes  was  a  place  in  Algeria,  the  headquarters 
of  the  Foreign  Legion,  that  mysterious  band  of  men 
without  a  country,  in  whom  men  of  all  countries  are  in- 
terested. What  was  there  in  the  subject  of  the  Foreign 
Legion  to  attract  such  a  girl?  Could  she  be  going  alone 
to  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  hoping  to  find  some  lost  relative  —  a 
brother,  perhaps?  She  asked  the  man  eager  questions, 
which  Max  could  not  hear,  but  the  big  fellow  shook  his 
bullet-shaped  head.  Evidently  he  had  little  information 
to  give  on  the  subject  which  specially  appealed  to  her; 
but  there  were  others  on  which  he  held  forth  volubly; 
and  though  the  girl's  attention  flagged  sometimes,  she 
could  have  been  no  more  gracious  in  her  manner  to  the 
common  fellow  if  he  had  been  an  exiled  king.  "  La  Boxe" 
were  the  words  which  Max  began  to  hear  repeated,  and 
a  boxer  was  what  the  man  looked  like:  a  second  or  third 
rate  professional.  Max  wished  that  he  could  catch  what 
was  being  said,  for  boxing  was  one  of  his  own  accom- 
plishments. He  boxed  so  well  that  once,  before  he  was 
twenty-one,  he  had  knocked  out  his  master,  an  ex-light- 
weight champion,  in  three  rounds.  Since  then  he  had 
kept  up  his  practice,  and  the  sporting  set  among  the 
officers  at  Fort  Ellsworth  had  been  proud  of  their  Max 
Doran. 

Every  moment  the  weather  grew  worse,  and  one  after 
another  the  few  second-class  passengers  who  had  dared 
to  risk  dining  faded  away.  At  last,  about  halfway  through 
the  badly  served  meal,  the  girl  got  up  with  a  wan  little 
smile  for  her  talkative  neighbour,  and  went  out,  keeping 
her  balance  by  catching  at  the  back  of  a  chair  now  and 


THE  UPPER  BERTH  55 

then.  The  bullet-headed  man  soon  followed,  charging  at 
the  open  door  like  a  bull,  as  a  wave  dropped  the  floor 
under  his  feet.  But  Max,  priding  himself  on  his  qualities 
as  a  sailor,  managed  to  sit  through  the  meagre  dessert. 

The  girl  was  not  visible  on  the  rain-swept  deck,  or  in 
the  gloomy  reading-room,  where  Max  glanced  over  old 
French  papers  until  his  optic  nerves  sent  imperative 
messages  of  protest  to  his  brain.  Then  he  strayed  on 
deck  again,  finding  excuse  after  excuse  to  keep  out  of 
his  cabin,  where  no  doubt  a  seasick  roommate  was  by 
this  time  wallowing  and  guzzling.  At  last,  however, 
his  swimming  head  begged  for  a  pillow,  no  matter  how 
hard,  and  in  desperation  he  went  below.  He  found  the 
cabin  door  on  the  hook,  and  the  faded  curtain  of  cretonne 
drawn  across.  There  was  one  comfort,  at  least:  the 
wretch  liked  air.  Max  hoped  the  fellow  had  gone  to 
sleep,  in  which  case  there  might  be  some  chance  of  rest. 
Gently  he  unhooked  the  door  and  fastened  it  again  in 
the  same  manner.  A  little  light  flittered  through  the  thin 
curtain,  enabling  Max  to  grope  his  way  about  the  tiny 
stateroom,  and  he  determined  not  to  rouse  his  companion 
by  switching  on  the  electricity. 

It  had  occurred  to  him,  on  his  way  to  the  cabin,  that  he 
might  find  his  berth  usurped  by  a  prostrate  form,  as  in 
the  afternoon  by  a  bag.  But  his  first  peering  glance 
through  the  dimness  reassured  him  on  this  point.  The 
owner  of  the  bag  had  taken  the  hint,  and  stowed  himself 
in  his  own  bunk.  Max  could  just  make  out  a  huddled 
shape  under  bedclothes  which  had  been  drawn  high 
for  warmth.  Then  he  knelt  down  to  grope  for  the  suit- 
case which  he  had  pushed  far  under  his  own  berth. 


56  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

Seeking  it  in  the  semi-darkness,  a  wave  sent  him  sprawling. 
He  heard  from  somewhere  a  shrill  crash  of  glass,  a  sudden 
babble  of  excited  voices,  and  decided  it  would  not  be 
worth  while  to  undress  unless  the  storm  should  abate. 
He  scrambled  up,  and  thankfully  flung  himself,  just  as 
he  was,  on  to  his  bunk.  In  the  wild  confusion  of  squeak- 
ing, straining  planks,  the  thump  of  waves  against  the 
porthole,  the  demon-shrieks  of  infuriated  wind,  and  the 
shouts  and  running  to  and  fro  of  sailors  overhead,  it 
seemed  impossible  that  any  human  being  could  sleep. 
Yet  the  creature  overhead  was  mercifully  quiet;  and  sud- 
denly slumber  fell  upon  Max,  shutting  out  thought  and 
sound.  For  a  while  he  slept  heavily;  but  by  and  by 
dreams  came  and  lifted  the  curtain  of  unconsciousness, 
stirring  him  to  restlessness.  It  seemed  that  he  had  lived 
through  years  since  New  York,  and  that  everything  had 
long  ago  been  decided  for  him,  one  way  or  the  other, 
though  his  dulled  brain  kept  the  secret.  He  knew  only 
that  he  was  at  Sidi-bel- Abbes  —  Sidi-bel- Abbes.  How 
he  had  got  there,  and  what  he  was  doing,  he  could  not 
tell.  It  ought  to  be  a  town,  but  it  was  not.  There  were 
no  houses  nor  buildings  of  any  kind  in  this  strange  Sidi- 
bel-Abbes.  He  could  see  only  waves  of  yellow  sand, 
billowing  and  moving  all  around  him  like  sea  waves; 
and  it  was  sea  as  well  as  desert.  Suddenly  one  of  the 
waves  rolled  away,  to  show  a  small  white  tent,  almost 
like  a  covered  boat.  A  voice  was  calling  to  him  from 
it,  and  he  struggled  to  get  near,  falling  and  stumbling 
among  the  yellow  waves.  Then  abruptly  he  started  back. 
It  was  Billie  Brockton's  voice.  Instead  of  being  glad 
to  hear  it,  he  was  bitterly,  bleakly  disappointed,  and  felt 


THE  UPPER  BERTH  57 

chilled  to  the  heart  with  cold.  Surprised  at  his  own 
despair,  he  waked  up,  with  a  great  start,  just  in  time  to 
brace  his  feet  against  the  bottom  of  the  berth  and  save 
himself  from  being  thrown  out  by  a  shuddering  bound 
of  the  ship.  From  overhead  he  heard  a  sigh  of  pain  or 
weariness,  and  the  top  berth  creaked  with  some  move- 
ment of  its  occupant.  "The  beast's  awake!"  thought 
Max,  resentfully.  "Now  for  ructions!  No  more  hope  of 
sleep  for  me,  I  suppose. " 

But  all  was  still  again,  except  for  a  faint  rustling  as  if  the 
pillow  were  being  turned  over.  At  the  same  instant  some- 
thing long  and  supple,  like  a  thick,  silky  rope,  slid  down 
from  above.  He  could  see  it  in  the  dim  light  as  it  fell 
and  brushed  his  hand  protruding,  palm  uppermost,  over 
the  edge  of  the  bunk.  Quite  mechanically  he  shut  his 
fingers  on  the  thing,  to  prevent  its  dropping  to  the  floor, 
and,  to  his  amazement,  it  felt  to  the  touch  like  a  woman's 
hair.  His  hand  was  full  of  it  —  a  great,  satin-soft  curl  it 
seemed  to  be.  Only,  it  couldn't  be  that,  of  course !  Maybe 
he  was  half  dreaming  still.  He  opened  his  fingers  and 
let  the  stuff  go.  But  instead  of  falling  to  the  floor,  the 
long  rope  swayed  gently  back  and  forth  with  the  rocking 
of  the  ship.  It  was  hair!  A  wonderful  plait  of  hair, 
attached  to  a  woman's  head.  A  woman  was  lying  there 
in  the  upper  berth. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    NIGHT    OF    STORMS 

A  WOMAN!  But  how  was  it  possible  that  there  should  be 
a  woman  in  his  cabin?  There  must  have  been  some  un- 
thinkable mistake,  and  he  felt  confident  that  it  was  not 
he  who  had  made  it.  He  had  looked  carefully  at  the 
number  over  the  door,  comparing  it  with  the  number  on 
his  ticket.  But,  after  all,  what  did  it  matter?  It  was 
too  late  now  to  apportion  blame.  She  was  there.  And 
what  hair  she  had!  When  she  stood  up  it  must  fall  far 
below  her  knees. 

"What  shall  I  do?"  thought  Max.  "Shall  I  lie  still 
until  she  goes  to  sleep  again,  and  then  sneak  out  into  the 
satte?  If  she  doesn't  see  my  suitcase  she  need  never  know 
I've  been  in  the  room." 

And,  after  all,  it  came  back  to  that,  whether  he  had 
mistaken  the  cabin,  or  she.  If  he  had  left  his  suitcase  in 
plain  sight,  marked  "  Lieutenant  Max  Doran,  —  th  Cav- 
alry, Fort  Ellsworth,"  the  woman  would  have  rung  for 
a  steward,  and  the  error  would  somehow  have  been  ad- 
justed. 

Four  or  five  minutes  passed,  and  silence  reigned  in  the 
berth  overhead.  Max  sat  up  cautiously,  lest  his  bunk 
should  squeak,  and  had  begun  still  more  cautiously  to 
emerge  from  it,  when  there  came  a  sudden  vicious  lurch 

58 


THE  NIGHT  OF  STORMS  59 

of  the  ship.  He  was  flung  out,  but  seized  the  berth- 
curtain,  as  the  General  Morel  awkwardly  wallowed,  and 
staggered  to  his  feet,  just  in  time  to  save  the  occupant 
of  the  upper  berth  from  flying  across  the  room.  With  a 
cry,  she  fell  on  to  his  shoulder,  and  he  held  her  up  with 
one  hand,  still  grasping  the  curtain  with  the  other.  The 
long  plait  of  hair  and  a  smooth  bare  arm  were  round  his 
neck.  A  face  was  close  to  his,  and  he  could  feel  warm, 
quick  breaths  on  his  cheek. 

"Don't  be  frightened,"  he  heard  himself  soothe  her 
with  deceitful  calm.  "It'll  be  all  right  in  a  minute.  I 
won't  let  you  fall." 

Even  as  he  spoke,  it  occurred  to  Max  that  possibly  she 
didn't  understand  English.  The  thought  had  hardly  time 
to  pass  through  his  mind,  however,  when  she  answered  him 
in  English  in  a  shocked  whisper,  try  ing  vainly  to  draw  away: 

"But  —  it's  a  man!  —  in  my  cabin!" 

"I'm  awfully  sorry,"  said  Max.  "There's  been  some 
mistake.  Better  let  me  hold  you  a  few  seconds  more, 
till  the  ship's  steadier.  Then  I'll  lift  you  down  to  the 
lower  berth.  You  see,  I  thought  it  was  my  cabin." 

"Oh,"  she  exclaimed;  and  he  felt  a  quiver  run  through 
the  bare  arm.  Her  hair,  which  showered  over  his  face 
and  twined  intricately  round  his  neck,  had  a  faint,  flowery 
perfume.  "As  soon  as  I  get  you  down,  and  make  you 
comfortable,  I'll  go,"  he  hurried  on.  "There,  now,  I 
think  things  are  quieting  for  the  moment.  We  must 
have  had  two  waves  following  one  another  quicker  than 
the  rest.  Let  go  your  hold  on  the  berth,  and  I'll  take 
you  out." 

He  felt  her  relax  obediently;  and  slipping  one  arm 


60  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

under  her  shoulder,  the  other  under  her  knees,  he  lifted 
a  burden  which  proved  to  be  light,  from  the  upper  berth, 
to  bestow  it  in  safety,  far  back  against  the  wall  in  the 
bunk  underneath. 

"Oh,  thank  you,"  was  breathed  out  with  a  sigh  of 
relief.  "You're  very  kind  —  and  so  strong!  But  I  feel 
dreadfully  ill.  I  hope  I'm  not  going  to  faint." 

"I'll  get  you  some  brandy,"  said  Max,  bethinking 
himself  of  a  certain  silver  flask  in  his  suitcase,  a  prize 
as  it  happened,  won  as  an  amateur  of  la  boxe. 

To  his  horror  she  made  no  answer. 

"  Jove! "  he  muttered.  "She's  gone  off  —  and  no  won- 
der. It's  awful!" 

He  began  to  be  flurried,  for  his  own  head  was  not  too 
clear.  "She  may  be  flung  to  the  floor  while  I'm  groping 
around  for  that  suitcase  of  mine,  if  she's  fainted,  and 
can't  save  herself  when  the  next  wave  comes,"  he  thought. 
"That  won't  do.  I'll  have  to  light  up,  and  wall  her  in 
with  the  bedding  from  the  top  bunk,  so  she  can't  easily 
be  pitched  out." 

Hesitating  a  little,  not  quite  sure  about  the  propriety 
of  the  necessary  revelation,  he  nevertheless  switched  on 
the  electricity.  After  the  dusk  which  had  turned  every- 
thing shadow-gray,  the  little  stateroom  appeared  to  be 
brilliantly  illuminated.  In  his  berth  lay  the  girl  he  had 
seen  on  deck  and  at  dinner. 

Max  was  not  completely  taken  by  surprise,  as  he  would 
have  been  had  he  seen  the  vision  before  hearing  her  voice. 
As  she  clung  round  his  neck,  she  had  spoken  only  bro- 
kenly and  in  a  whisper,  but  from  the  first  words  he  had 
felt  instinctively  sure  of  his  companion's  identity. 


THE  NIGHT  OF  STORMS  61 

If  she  had  been  delicately  pale  before,  now  she  was 
deathly  white,  so  white  that  Max,  who  had  never  before 
seen  a  woman  faint,  felt  a  stab  of  fear.  What  if  she  had 
a  weak  heart?  What  if  she  were  dead? 

She  wore  a  dressing-gown  of  a  white  woollen  material, 
inexpensive  perhaps,  but  classic  in  its  soft  foldings  around 
the  slender  body;  and  the  thought  flitted  through  Max's 
head  that  she  was  like  a  slim  Greek  statue,  come  alive; 
or  perhaps  Galatea,  disappointed  with  the  world,  turning 
back  to  marble. 

All  the  while  he,  with  unsteady  hands,  unlocked  and 
opened  his  bag,  fumbling  among  its  contents  for  the  flask, 
she  lay  still,  without  a  quiver  of  the  eyelids.  She  did 
not  even  seem  to  breathe.  But  perhaps  girls  were  like 
that  when  they  fainted!  Max  didn't  know.  He  wanted 
to  listen  for  the  beating  of  her  heart,  but  dared  not. 
He  would  try  the  brandy,  and  if  that  did  not  bring  her  to 
herself,  he  would  ring  and  ask  for  the  ship's  doctor. 
But  —  could  he  do  that?  How  could  he  explain  to  any 
one  their  being  together  in  this  cabin? 

Hastily  he  poured  a  little  brandy  from  the  flask  into 
the  tiny  cup  which  screwed  on  like  a  cover.  The  pitching 
and  tossing  made  it  hard  not  to  spill  the  fluid  over  the 
upturned  face  —  that  would  have  been  sacrilege!  —  but 
with  an  adroitness  born  of  desperation  he  contrived  to 
pour  a  few  drops  between  the  parted  lips.  Apparently 
they  produced  no  effect;  but  another  cautious  experiment 
was  rewarded  by  a  gasp  and  a  slight  quivering  of  the 
white  throat.  On  one  knee  by  the  side  of  the  berth, 
Max  slipped  an  arm  under  the  pillow,  thus  lifting  the 
girl's  head  a  little,  that  she  might  not  choke.  As  he 


62  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

did  this  she  swallowed  convulsively,  and  opening  her 
eyes  wide,  looked  straight  into  his. 

"Thank  heaven!"  exclaimed  Max.  "You  frightened 
me." 

She  smiled  at  him,  their  faces  not  far  apart,  her  wonder- 
ful hair  trailing  past  his  breast.  \et  in  his  anxiety  and 
relief  Max  had  lost  all  sense  of  strangeness  in  the  situation. 
Drawing  long,  slow  breaths,  she  seemed  purposefully  to 
be  gaining  strength  to  speak.  "  It's  nothing  —  to  faint, " 
she  murmured.  "I  used  to,  often.  And  I  feel  so  ill." 

"Have  you  any  one  on  board  whom  I  could  call?" 
Max  asked. 

"Nobody,"  she  sighed.  "I'm  all  alone.  I  —  surely 
this  cabin  is  65?" 

"  I  think  it's  63.  But  no  matter, "  Max  answered  hur- 
riedly. "Don't  bother  about  that  now.  I  - 

"  When  I  came  in  first  this  morning,  I  rang  for  a  steward- 
ess to  ask  if  there  was  to  be  any  one  with  me, "  the  girl 
went  on,  a  faint  colour  beginning  to  paint  her  white  cheeks 
and  lips  with  the  palest  rose.  "But  nobody  answered 
the  bell.  There  was  no  luggage  here,  and  I  thought  I 
must  be  by  myself.  But  afterward  a  stewardess  or  some 
one  put  my  bag  off  this  bed  on  to  the  upper  one  so  I 
dared  not  take  the  lower  berth.  I  put  the  door  on  the 
hook,  to  get  air;  but  when  I  heard  somebody  come  in,  I 
never  dreamed  it  might  be  a  man." 

"Of  course  not,"  Max  agreed.  "And  I  —  when  I 
saw  a  form  in  the  dim  light,  lying  up  there  —  I  never 
thought  of  its  being  a  woman.  I  can't  tell  you  how  sorry 
I  am  to  have  seemed  such  a  brute.  But  — 

"After  all,  it's  a  fortunate  thing  for  me  you  were  here, " 


THE  NIGHT  OF  STORMS  63 

the  girl  comforted  him.  "If  you  hadn't  been,  I  should 
have  fallen  out  of  the  top  berth  and  perhaps  killed  myself. 
I  should  hate  to  die  now.  I  want  so  much  to  see  my 
father  in  Africa,  and  —  and  —  somebody  else.  I  think 
you  must  have  saved  my  life. " 

"I  should  be  so  happy  to  think  that,"  Max  answered 
warmly.  "I  haven't  as  pleasant  an  errand  in  Africa  as 
you  have.  But  whatever  happens,  I  shall  be  thankful 
that  I  came,  and  on  this  ship.  I  was  wondering  to-day 
if  I  were  glad  or  sorry  to  have  been  born.  But  if  I  was 
born  to  save  a  girl  from  harm,  it  was  worth  while,  of 
course,  just  for  that  and  nothing  else.  Now,  if  you're 
feeling  pretty  well  again,  I'd  better  go."  Gently  he 
drew  his  arm  out  from  under  the  pillow,  thus  laying  down 
the  head  he  had  supported. 

The  girl  turned,  resting  her  cheek  on  her  hand  —  a 
frail  little  hand,  soft-looking  as  that  of  a  child  —  and 
gazed  at  Max  wistfully. 

"  I  suppose  you'll  think  it's  dreadful  of  me,"  she  faltered, 
"but  —  I  wish  you  needn't  go.  I've  never  been  on  the 
real  sea  before  since  I  was  a  baby :  only  getting  from  Eng- 
land to  Ireland  the  shortest  way,  and  on  the  Channel. 
This  is  the  first  storm  I've  seen.  I  never  thought  I  was 
a  coward.  I  don't  like  even  women  to  be  cowards.  I 
adore  bravery  in  men,  and  that's  why  I  —  but  no  matter! 
I  don't  know  if  I'm  afraid  exactly,  but  it's  a  dreadful  feeling 
to  be  alone,  without  any  one  to  care  whether  you  drown 
or  not,  at  night  on  a  horrible  old  ship,  in  the  raging 
waves.  The  sea's  like  some  fierce,  hungry  animal,  waiting 
its  chance  to  eat  us  up. " 

"It  won't  get  the  chance,"  Max  returned  cheerfully. 


64  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

He  was  standing  now,  and  she  was  looking  up  at  him 
from  the  hard  little  pillow  lately  pressed  by  his  own 
head.  "  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  the  old  tub  has  gone  through 
lots  of  worse  gales  than  this. " 

"It's  comforting  to  hear  you  say  so,  and  to  have  a 
human  being  to  talk  to,  in  the  stormy  night, "  sighed  the 
girl.  "I  feel  better.  But  if  you  go  —  and  —  where  will 
you  go?" 

"There  are  plenty  of  places,"  Max  answered  her  with 
vague  optimism. 

Just  then  the  General  Morel  gave  a  leap,  poised  on  the 
top  of  some  wall  of  water,  quivered,  hesitated,  and  jumped 
from  the  height  into  a  gulf.  Max  held  the  girl  firmly 
in  the  berth,  or  she  would  have  been  pitched  on  to  the 
floor.  Involuntarily  she  grasped  his  arm,  and  let  it  go 
only  when  the  wallowing  ship  subsided. 

"That  was  awful!"  she  whispered.  "It  makes  one  feel 
as  if  one  were  dying.  I  can't  be  alone!  Don't  leave 
me!" 

"Not  unless  you  wish  me  to  go,"  Max  said  with  great 
gentleness. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  —  I  can't !  Except  that  you  must  be  so 
miserably  uncomfortable. " 

"I'm  not;  and  it's  the  finest  compliment  and  the  great- 
est honour  I've  ever  had  in  my  life,"  Max  stammered, 
"  that  you  should  ask  me  to  —  that  it  should  be  a  com- 
fort to  you,  my  staying. " 

"But  you  are  the  kind  of  man  women  know  they  can 
trust, "  the  girl  apologized  for  herself.  "You  see,  one  can 
tell.  Besides,  from  the  way  you  speak,  I  think  you  must 
be  an  American.  I've  heard  they're  always  good  to  wo- 


THE  NIGHT  OF  STORMS  65 

men.  I  saw  you  on  deck,  and  afterward  at  dinner.  J 
thought  then  there  was  something  that  rang  true  about 
you.  I  said  'That  man  is  one  of  the  few  unselfish  ones. 
He  would  sacrifice  himself  utterly  for  others.'  A  look  you 
have  about  the  eyes  told  me  that. " 

"I'm  not  being  unselfish  now,"  Max  broke  out  impul- 
sively; then,  fearing  he  had  said  an  indiscreet  thing,  he 
hurried  on  to  something  less  personal.  "How  would  it 
be,"  he  suggested  in  a  studiously  commonplace  tone,  "if 
I  should  make  myself  comfortable  sitting  on  my  suitcase, 
just  near  enough  to  your  berth  to  keep  you  from  falling 
out  in  case  another  of  those  monsters  hit  the  ship? 
You  could  go  to  sleep,  and  know  you  were  safe,  because 
I'd  be  watching." 

"  How  good  you  are ! "  said  the  girl.  "  But  I  don't  want 
to  sleep,  thank  you.  I  don't  feel  faint  now.  I  believe 
you've  given  me  some  of  your  strength." 

"That's  the  brandy,"  said  Max,  very  matter  of  fact. 
"Have  a  few  drops  more?  You  can't  have  swallowed 
half  a  teaspoonful " 

"Do  you  think,  if  I  took  a  little,  it  would  make  me 
warm?  I'm  so  icy  cold." 

"  Yes,  it  ought  to  send  a  glow  through  your  body."  He 
poured  another  teaspoonful  into  the  miniature  silver  cup, 
and  supported  the  pillow  again,  that  she  need  not  lift 
her  head.  Then  he  took  the  two  blankets  off  the  upper 
berth,  and  wrapped  them  round  the  girl,  tucking  them 
cozily  in  at  the  side  of  the  bed  and  under  her  feet. 

"If  you  were  my  brother,"  she  said,  "you  couldn't 
be  kinder  to  me.  Have  you  ever  had  a  woman  to  take 
care  of  —  a  mother,  or  a  sister,  perhaps?" 


66  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

"I  never  had  a  sister,"  Max  answered.  "But  when  I 
was  a  boy  I  loved  to  look  after  my  mother." 

"And  now,  is  she  dead?  " 

"Now  she's  dead." 

"My  mother,"  the  girl  volunteered,  "died  when  I  was 
born.  That  made  my  father  hate  the  thought  of  me, 
because  he  worshipped  her,  and  it  must  have  seemed  my 
fault  that  she  was  lost  to  him.  I  haven't  seen  my  father 
since  I  was  a  little  girl.  But  I'm  going  to  him  now.  I've 
practically  run  away  from  the  aunts  he  put  me  to  live 
with;  and  I'd  hardly  any  money,  so  I  was  obliged  to  travel 
all  the  way  second-class." 

"That's  exactly  what  I  thought!"  ejaculated  Max. 

"Did  you  think  about  me,  too?"  she  asked,  interest  in 
their  talk  helping  her  to  forget  the  rolling  of  the  ship. 

"Yes,  I  thought  about  you  —  of  course." 

"That  I'd  run  away?" 

"Well,  you  were  so  different  from  the  rest,  it  was  queer 
to  see  you  in  the  second-class." 

"But  so  are  you  —  different  from  the  rest.  Yet  you're 
in  the  second-class." 

"I'm  hard  up,"  exclaimed  Max,  smiling. 

"You,  too!  How  strange  that  we,  of  all  the  others, 
should  come  together  like  this.  It  is  as  if  it  were  some- 
how meant  to  be,  isn't  it?  As  if  we  were  intended  to  do 
something  for  each  other  in  future.  I  wish  I  could  do 
something  for  you,  to  pay  you  for  to-night." 

"I  don't  need  pay."  Max  smiled  again,  almost  hap- 
pily. "  It's  you  who  are  being  good  to  me.  I  was  feeling 
horribly  down  on  my  luck." 

"I'm  sorry.     But  it's  helped  you  to  help  me.     I  under- 


THE  NIGHT  OF  STORMS  67 

stand  that.  Do  you  know,  I  believe  you  are  one  whose 
greatest  pleasure  is  in  doing  things  for  those  not  as  strong 
as  yourself." 

"I  never  noticed  that  in  my  character,"  laughed  Max. 

"Yet  there's  something  which  tells  me  I'm  right.  I 
think  you  would,  for  that  reason,  make  a  good  soldier. 
My  father  is  a  soldier.  He's  stationed  at  a  place  called 
Sidi-bel-Abbes." 

"But  that's  where  the  Foreign  Legion  is,  isn't  it?" 
The  words  slipped  out. 

"He's  colonel  of  the  First  Regiment.  Oh,  I  believe 
it's  half  dread  of  what  he'll  say  to  me,  that  makes  me  so 
ill  and  nervous  to-night.  The  only  two  men  in  the  world 
I  love  are  so  strong,  so  —  so  almost  terrible,  that  I'm  like  a 
little  wreath  of  spray  dashed  against  the  rocks  of  their 
nature.  They  don't  even  know  I'm  there! " 

Suddenly  Max  seemed  to  see  the  two  framed  photo- 
graphs in  the  open  bag:  an  officer  in  French  uniform, 
and  Richard  Stanton,  the  explorer,  the  man  of  fire  and 
steel  said  to  be  without  mercy  for  himself  or  others.  Max 
felt  ashamed,  as  if  inadvertently  he  had  stumbled  upon 
a  secret.  "Strong  men  should  be  the  tenderest  to  wo- 
men," he  reminded  her. 

"Yes,  on  principle.  But  when  they  want  to  live  their 
own  lives,  and  women  interfere?  What  then?  Could  one 
expect  them  to  be  kind  and  gentle?" 

"A  man  worth  his  salt  couldn't  be  harsh  to  a  woman 
he  loved." 

"But  if  he  didn't  love  her?  I'm  thinking  of  two  men  I 
know.  And  just  now,  more  of  my  father  than  —  than 
the  other.  I've  got  no  one  to  advise  me.  I  wonder  if 


68  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

you  would,  a  little?  You're  a  man,  and  —  and  I  can't 
help  wondering  if  you're  not  a  soldier.  Don't  think  I  ask 
from  curiosity.  And  don't  tell  me  if  you'd  rather  not. 
But  you  see,  if  you  are  one,  it  would  help,  because  you 
could  understand  better  how  a  soldier  would  feel  about 
things." 

"I  have  been  a  soldier,"  Max  said.  There  was  no  rea- 
son why  he  should  keep  back  the  truth  from  this  little  girl 
for  whom  he  was  playing  watchdog:  the  little  girl  who 
thought  him  as  kind  as  a  brother!  "But  I'm  'afraid  I 
don't  know  much  about  women." 

"The  soldier  I'm  thinking  about  —  my  f  ather  - 
doesn't  want  to  have  anything  to  do  with  women.  My 
mother  spoiled  him  for  others.  I  believe  their  love  story 
must  be  the  saddest  in  the  whole  world.  But  tell  me, 
if  you  were  old,  as  he  is,  nearly  fifty,  and  you  had  a  daugh- 
ter you  didn't  love  —  though  you'd  been  kind  about 
money  and  all  that  —  what  would  you  say  if  she  suddenly 
appeared  from  another  country,  and  said  she'd  come  to 
live  with  you?" 

"By  Jove!"  exclaimed  Max.  "Is  that  what  you're  go- 
ing to  do?" 

"Yes.  You  think  my  father  will  have  a  right  to  be 
angry  with  me,  and  perhaps  send  me  back?" 

"I  don't  know  about  the  right,"  said  Max,  "but 
soldiers  get  used  to  discipline,  you  see.  And  a  colonel  of 
a  regiment  is  always  obeyed.  He  might  find  it  incon- 
venient if  a  girl  suddenly  turned  up." 

"But  that's  my  only  hope!"  she  pleaded.  "Surprising 
my  father.  Anyhow,  I  simply  can't  go  back  to  my  aunts. 
I  have  some  in  Dublin  —  they  were  my  mother's  aunts, 


THE  NIGHT  OF  STORMS  69 

too :  and  some  in  Paris  —  aunts  of  my  father.  That 
makes  them  my  great-aunts,  doesn't  it?  Perhaps  they're 
harder  for  young  people  to  live  with  than  plain  aunts, 
who  aren't  great.  I  shall  be  twenty-one  in  a  few  weeks 
and  free  to  choose  my  own  life  if  my  father  won't  have  me. 
I'm  not  brave,  but  I'm  always  trying  to  be  brave!  I  can 
engage  as  a  governess  or  something,  in  Algeria,  if  the 
worst  comes  to  the  worst. " 

"I  don't  believe  your  father  would  let  you  do  that. 
/  wouldn't  in  his  place. " 

"After  all,  you're  very  young  to  judge  what  he  would 
do,  even  though  you  are  a  soldier!"  exclaimed  the  girl, 
determined  not  to  be  thwarted.  "I  must  take  my  chance 
with  him.  I  shall  go  to  Sidi-bel- Abbes.  If  there's  a  train, 
I'll  start  to-morrow  night.  And  you,  what  are  you  going 
to  do?  Shall  you  stop  long  in  Algiers?" 

"That  depends,"  answered  Max,  "on  my  finding  a  wo- 
man I've  come  to  search  for." 

The  girl  was  gazing  at  him  with  the  deepest  interest. 
"You  have  come  to  Algiers  to  find  a  woman,"  she  mur- 
mured, "  and  I,  to  find  a  man.  Do  you  —  oh,  don't 
think  me  impertinent  —  do  you  love  the  woman?" 

"No, "  said  Max.  "I've  never  seen  her. "  And  then, 
the  power  of  the  storm  and  the  night,  and  their  strange, 
dreamlike  intimacy,  made  him  add:  "I  love  a  woman 
whom  I  may  never  see  again." 

"And  I, "  said  the  girl,  "love  a  man  I  haven't  seen  since 
I  was  a  child.  Let's  wish  each  other  happiness." 

"I  wish  you  happiness,"  echoed  Max. 

"And  I  you.  I  shall  often  think  of  you,  even  if  we 
never  meet  after  to-morrow.  But  I  hope  we  shall!  I  be- 


70  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

lieve  we  shall. "  She  shut  her  eyes  suddenly,  and  lay  still 
for  so  long  that  Max  was  afraid  she  might  have  fainted 
again. 

"Are  you  all  right?"  he  asked  anxiously,  bending  to- 
ward her  from  his  low  seat  on  the  suitcase. 

She  opened  her  eyes  with  a  slight  start,  as  if  she  had 
waked,  half  dazed,  from  some  unfinished  dream. 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  said.  "I  was  making  a  picture,  in  a 
way  I  have.  I  was  wondering  what  would  happen  to 
us,  in  our  different  paths,  and  trying  to  see.  One  of  my 
aunts  says  it  is  '  Celtic '  to  do  that.  I  saw  you  in  a  great 
waste-place,  like  a  desert.  And  then  —  7  was  there,  too. 
We  were  together  —  all  alone.  Perhaps,  although  I  didn't 
know  it,  I'd  really  fallen  asleep. " 

"Perhaps,"  agreed  Max,  and  a  vague  thrill  ran  through 
him.  He,  too,  had  dreamed  of  desert  as  he  lay  in  the  lower 
berth,  and  she,  overhead,  had  dreamed  a  desert  dream, 
each  unknown  to  the  other.  "Try  to  go  to  sleep  again. " 

She  closed  her  eyes,  and  presently  he  thought  that 
she  slept.  Once  or  twice  she  waked  with  the  heave  and 
jolt  of  a  great  wave,  always  to  find  her  watchdog  at  hand. 

But  at  last,  when  with  the  dawn  the  storm  lulled,  Max 
noiselessly  switched  off  the  light  and  went  out. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   NEWS 

IT  WAS  after  breakfast  when  they  met  once  more,  on  a 
wet  deck,  in  bleak  sunshine. 

"I  waked  up  in  broad  daylight  and  found  you  and  your 
suitcase  gone,"  said  the  girl.  "Oh,  how  guilty  I  felt! 
And  then  to  discover  that,  just  as  you  thought,  the  cabin 
was  63,  not  65.  What  became  of  you?" 

"I  was  all  right,"  replied  Max  evasively.  "I  got  a 
place  to  rest  and  wash." 

"In  65?" 

"No,  not  there." 

"Why,  was  there  a  woman  in  that  cabin,  too?" 

Max  laughed.  It  was  good  to  have  some  one  to  laugh 
with.  "  I  didn't  dare  look, "  he  confessed.  "And  I  didn't 
care  to  wander  about  explaining  myself  and  my  belong- 
ings to  suspicious  stewards." 

They  walked  up  and  down  the  deck,  shoulder  to  shoulder, 
like  old  comrades.  Last  night  there  had  been  so  many  mat- 
ters more  pressing  and  more  important,  that  they  had  for- 
gotten such  trifles  as  names.  Now  they  introduced  them- 
selves to  each  other,  though  Max  had  an  instant's  hesitation 
before  calling  himself  Doran.  To-morrow,  or  even  to-day, 
he  might  learn  that  which  would  part  him  forever  from  the 
name  and  all  that  had  endeared  and  adorned  it  for  him. 

71 


72  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

"Do  you  know  what  I've  been  calling  you?"  the  girl 
asked,  half  ashamed,  half  shyly  friendly,  "  '  St.  George. ' 
Because  you  came  and  saved  me  from  the  dragon  of  the 
sea  that  I  was  afraid  of.  And  that  was  appropriate, 
because  St.  George  is  my  patron  saint.  I  was  born  on  his 
day,  and  one  of  my  names  is  Georgette,  in  honour  of 
him,  and  of  my  father,  who  is  Georges:  Colonel  Georges 
DeLisle.  My  French  aunts  call  me  Georgette,  for  him. 
My  Irish  aunts  call  me  'Sanda, '  for  my  mother,  who 
was  Corisande,  and  I  like  being  'Sanda'  best." 

She  was  frank  about  herself,  as  if  to  reward  Max  for  his 
St.  George-like  vigil,  telling  him  details  of  her  life  in  Ire- 
land and  France,  and  how  it  had  come  about  that  Richard 
Stanton,  her  father's  friend,  had  informally  acted  as  her 
guardian  when  she  was  a  child.  Somehow,  finding  her  so 
simple  and  outspoken,  so  kindly  interested  in  him,  Max 
could  not  bear,  on  his  part,  to  build  up  a  wall  of  reserve. 
He  gave  the  name  that  had  always  been  his:  and  though 
he  did  not  tell  her  the  whole  story  of  his  quest,  he  said 
that  he  was  in  search  of  a  person  to  whom,  if  found,  all 
that  had  been  his  would  belong.  "But  you  needn't  pity 
me,"  he  added  quickly.  "I'm  used  to  the  idea  now.  I 
shall  lose  some  things  by  being  poor,  but  I  shall  gain 
others." 

She  gave  him  a  long  look,  seeing  that  he  wanted  no 
sympathy  in  words,  and  that  it  would  jar  on  him  if  she 
tried  to  offer  it.  "Yes,  you'll  gain  others,"  she  echoed. 
"It  must  be  splendid  to  be  a  man.  I  wonder  —  if  things 
go  as  you  think  —  will  you  stay  and  seek  your  fortune  in 
Algeria?" 

Seek  his  fortune  in  Algeria!     Max  could  not  answer  for 


THE  NEWS  73 

a  second  or  two.  Again  he  seemed  to  hear  Grant  Reeves 's 
rather  affected  voice  speaking  far  off  as  if  in  a  gramophone : 
"Perhaps  you  won't  want  to  come  back  to  America." 

When  Grant  had  said  that,  Max  had  resolved  almost 
fiercely  that  nothing  on  earth  should  keep  him  from  going 
back  as  quickly  as  possible.  If  Grant  or  Edwin  Reeves 
had  calmly  advised  his  seeking  a  new  fortune  in  remote 
Algeria,  he  would  have  flung  away  the  proposition  with 
passion;  but  when  Sanda  DeLisle  quietly  made  the  sug- 
gestion, it  was  different.  America  lay  behind  him  in  the 
far  distance,  where  the  sun  sets.  His  face  was  turned 
to  the  east,  and  Algeria  was  near.  The  girl  whom  he 
had  been  able  to  help  and  protect  was  near,  also.  And 
she  would  be  in  Algeria.  If  he  hurried  home  to  America 
he  would  never  see  her  again.  Not  that  that  ought  to 
matter  much !  They  were  ships  passing  each  other  in  the 
night.  Yet  —  they  had  exchanged  signals.  Max  had  a 
queer  feeling  that  they  belonged  to  each  other,  and  that, 
if  it  were  not  for  her,  he  would  he  hideously,  desperately 
homesick  at  this  moment,  almost  homesick  enough  to 
turn  coward  and  go  back  with  his  errand  not  done.  Cu- 
riously enough,  he  felt,  too,  that  she  had  somewhat  the 
same  feeling  about  him.  Silently  they  were  helping  each 
other  through  a  crisis. 

"I  hadn't  thought  of  staying  in  Algeria,"  he  answered 
her  at  last.  "  I  don't  suppose  I  shall  stay.  But  —  I  don't 
know.  Just  now  my  future's  hidden  behind  a  big  cloud." 

"Like  mine!"  cried  Sanda  DeLisle.  "Does  it  comfort 
you  at  all  to  know  there's  some  one  here,  close  to  your 
side,  who's  walking  in  the  dark,  exactly  as  you  are?" 

It  was  the  thought  that  had  hovered,  dim  and  wordless, 


74  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

in  his  own  mind.  "Yes,  it  does  comfort  me,"  he  said. 
"Though  I  ought  to  be  sorry  that  things  aren't  clear  for 
you.  They  will  be,  though,  I  hope,  before  long." 

"And  for  you,"  she  added.  "I  wish  we  could  exchange 
experiences  when  we've  found  out  what's  going  to  become 
of  us.  I  wish  you  were  going  on  to  Sidi-bel- Abbes." 

"I  wish  I  were,"  Max  said,  and  he  did  actually  wish  it. 

"Will  you  write  and  tell  me  what  happens  to  you?" 
she  rather  timidly  asked. 

" I  should  like  to.     It's  good  of  you  to  care." 

"It's  not  good,  but  I  do  care.  How  could  I  help  it, 
after  all  you've  done  for  me?  " 

"You'll  never  know  what  it  was  to  me  to  have  the 
chance.  And  will  you  write  what  your  father's  verdict 
is?  If  you  should  be  going  back,  perhaps  I ' 

"Oh,  I  shall  not  be  going  back!"  the  girl  cried,  with 
sharp  decision.  "But  I'll  write.  And  I  shall  never  for- 
get. If  men  disappoint  me  —  though  I  hope,  oh,  so 
much,  they  will  not  —  I  shall  remember  one  loyal  friend 
I  have  made.  After  last  night  and  to-day,  we  couldn't 
be  less  than  friends,  could  we?  even  though  we  never 
hear  from  each  other  again." 

"Thank  you  for  saying  that.  I  feel  it,  too,  more  than 
you  can,"  Max  assured  her.  "But  since  we're  to  be 
friends,  will  you  let  me  help  you  all  I  can,  and  see  you 
again  on  shore,  before  we  go  our  separate  ways?  Let 
me  find  out  about  your  train,  and  take  you  to  it,  and  so  on ; 
and  perhaps  you'll  dine  with  me,  if  there's  time  before 
you  start." 

"How  good  you  are!"  She  gave  him  one  of  those 
soft,  sweet  glances,  which,  unlike  Billie  Brockton's  lovely 


THE  NEWS  75 

looks,  were  prompted  by  no  conscious  desire  to  charm. 
"But  you  will  be  so  busy  with  your  own  affairs!" 

"Not  too  busy  for  that.  I  don't  suppose  it  will  be 
very  difficult  to  get  at  what  I've  come  for.  I  shall  soon 
know — one  way  or  the  other.  I  may  have  to  go  on 
somewhere  else,  but  one  day  won't  matter.  I  can  give 
myself  a  little  indulgence,  if  it's  for  the  last  tune." 

So  they  settled  it.  Max  was  to  be  "  St.  George"  and 
keep  off  dragons  for  a  few  hours  more. 

The  General  Morel  was  supposed  to  do  the  distance 
between  Marseilles  and  Algiers  in  twenty-four  hours, 
but  on  this  trip  she  had  an  unusually  good  excuse  to  be 
late.  The  storm  had  delayed  her,  and  every  one  was 
thankful  that  it  was  only  half-past  three  when  the  ship 
steamed  into  the  old  "pirate  city's"  splendid  harbour. 

Max  Doran  and  Sanda  DeLisle  stood  together  watching 
the  Atlas  mountains  turning  from  violet  blue  to  golden 
green,  and  the  clustered  pearls  on  hill  and  shore  transform 
themselves  into  white  domes.  The  two  landed  together, 
also,  and  Sanda  let  Max  go  with  her  in  a  big  motor  omnibus 
to  the  Hotel  Saint  George,  the  hotel  of  her  patron  saint, 
whose  name  Max  remembered  well  because  of  postcards 
picturing  its  beautiful  terrace  and  garden,  sent  him  long 
ago  by  Rose  when  he  was  a  cadet  at  West  Point.  They 
discovered  that  the  first  train  in  which  Sanda  could  leave 
for  Sidi-bel- Abbes  would  start  at  nine  o'clock  that  evening, 
so  the  proposed  dinner  became  possible;  and  Sanda,  by 
the  advice  of  Max,  took  a  room  at  the  hotel  for  the  rest 
of  the  day,  inviting  him  to  have  tea  with  her  on  the  terrace 
at  five,  if  he  were  free  to  come  back. 

He  waited  until  the  girl  had  disappeared  with  a  porter 


76  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

and  her  hand-luggage,  and  then  inquired  of  the  concierge 
whether  the  Hotel-Pension  Delatour  still  existed.  He  put 
the  question  carelessly,  as  though  it  meant  nothing  to  him, 
adding,  as  the  man  paused  to  think,  that  he  had  looked  in 
vain  for  the  name  in  the  guide-book. 

"Ah,  I  remember  now,  sir,"  said  the  concierge.  "There 
used  to  be  a  hotel  of  that  name,  close  to  the  old  town  —  the 
Kasbah;  quite  a  little  place,  for  commercants,  and  people 
like  that.  Why,  yes,  to  be  sure!  But  the  name  has  been 
changed,  five  or  six  years  ago  it  must  be.  I  think  it  is 
the  Hotel-Pension  Schreiber  now." 

"Oh,  and  what  became  of  Delatour? "  Max  heard  him- 
self ask,  still  in  that  carefully  careless  tone  which  seemed 
to  his  ears  almost  too  well  done. 

"I'm  not  sure,  sir,  but  I  rather  think  he  died.  Yes, 
now  I  recall  reading  something  in  La  Depeche  Algerienne, 
at  the  time.  He'd  been  a  brave  soldier,  and  won  several 
medals.  There  was  a  paragraph,  yes,  with  a  mention  of 
his  family.  He  came  from  the  aristocracy,  it  said.  Per- 
haps that's  why  he  didn't  turn  out  a  good  man  of  business. 
Or  maybe  he  drank  too  much  or  took  to  drugs.  These  old 
retired  soldiers  who've  seen  hard  fighting  in  the  South 
often  turn  that  way." 

"Did  he  leave  a  widow  and  children?"  Max  went  on, 
his  throat  rather  dry. 

"That  I  can't  tell  you,  sir;  but  Delatour's  successor 
might  know.  I  could  send  there,  if ' 

"Thank  you.     I'll  go  myself,"  said  Max. 

The  concierge  advised  a  cab,  although  there  was  of 
course  the  tram  which  would  take  him  close  to  the  Hotel 
Schreiber,  and  then  he  could  inquire  his  way.  Max  chose 


THE  NEWS  77 

the  tram.  He  had  thought  it  not  unfair  to  pay  the  ex- 
penses of  his  quest  for  the  Doran  heiress  with  Doran 
money,  since  he  had  little  left  that  he  could  call  his  own. 
But  he  had  not  spent  an  extra  dollar  on  luxuries;  and  after 
a  journey  from  New  York  to  Paris,  Paris  to  Algiers,  second- 
class,  a  tram  as  a  climax  seemed  more  suitable  than  a  cab. 

Where  the  Arab  town  —  old  and  secret,  and  glimmering 
pale  as  a  whited  sepulchre  —  huddled  away  from  contact 
with  Europe,  a  narrow  street  ran  like  a  bridge  connecting 
West  with  East,  to-day  with  yesterday.  Near  the  en- 
trance to  this  street,  where  it  started  from  a  fine  open  place 
of  great  shops  and  cafes,  the  Hotel  Schreiber  stood  humbly 
squeezed  in  between  two  dull  buildings  as  shabby  as  itself. 

"In  a  few  minutes  I  shall  know,"  Max  said  to  himself, 
as  he  walked  into  a  cheaply  tiled,  dingy  hall,  smelling  of 
cabbage-soup  and  beer. 

Commercial  travellers'  sample  boxes  and  trunks  were 
piled  in  the  dim  corners,  and  a  fat,  white  little  man  behind 
a  window  labelled  "Bureau"  glanced  up  from  some  cal- 
culations, with  keen  interest  in  a  traveller  who  for  once 
looked  uncommercial. 

His  eyes  glazed  again  when  he  understood  that  Mon- 
sieur wished  only  to  make  inquiries,  not  to  engage  a  room. 
He  was  civil,  however,  and  glib  in  French  with  a  South- 
German  accent.  Madame  Delatour  had  sold  her  interest 
in  the  hotel  to  him,  Anton  Schreiber.  Unfortunately 
there  had  been  a  mortgage.  The  widow  was  left  badly 
off,  and  broken-hearted  at  her  husband's  death.  With 
what  little  money  she  had,  she  had  gone  to  Oran,  and 
through  official  influence  had  obtained  a  concession  for  a 
small  tobacconist  business,  selling  also  postcards  and 


78  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

stamps.  She  ought  to  have  done  well,  for  there  were 
many  soldiers  in  Oran.  They  all  wanted  tobacco  for 
themselves  and  postcards  for  their  friends.  But  Madame 
lost  interest  in  life  when  she  lost  Delatour  —  a  fine  fellow, 
well  spoken  of,  though  never  strong  since  some  fever  he 
had  contracted  in  the  far  South.  A  friend  in  Oran  had 
written  Schreiber  the  last  news  of  poor  Madame  Delatour. 
That  broken  heart  had  failed.  She  had  died  suddenly 
about  two  years  ago, and  the  girl  (yes,  there  was  a  daughter, 
a  strange  young  person)  had  been  engaged  through  the  in- 
fluence of  Schreiber's  Oran  friends,  to  assist  the  proprietor 
of  the  Hotel  Splendide  at  Sidi-bel- Abbes.  She  was,  Schrei- 
ber believed,  still  there,  in  the  position  of  secretary;  unless 
she'd  lately  married.  It  was  some  months  since  he'd 
heard. 

Sidi-bel- Abbes.  .  .  .  Home  of  the  Foreign  Legion; 
home  perhaps,  of  SandaDeLisle!  .  .  . 

It  was  all  over,  then.  The  blow  had  fallen,  and  Max 
thought  that  he  must  be  stunned  by  it,  for  he  felt  nothing, 
except  a  curious  thrill  which  came  with  the  news  that  he 
must  go  to  Sidi-bel- Abbes.  The  Arab  name  rang  in  his 
ears  like  the  sound  of  bells  —  fateful  bells  that  chime  at 
midnight  for  birth  or  death.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
Something  had  always  been  waiting,  hidden  behind  a 
corner  of  life,  calling  him  to  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  calling  for 
good  or  evil,  for  sorrow  or  happiness,  who  could  tell?  but 
calling.  And  his  whole  past,  with  its  fun  and  popularity 
and  gay  adventure,  its  one  unfinished  love  story,  its  one 
tragic  episode,  had  been  a  long  road  leading  him  on  toward 
this  day  —  and  Sidi-bel-Abbes. 


THE  NEWS  79 

The  temptation  to  go  back,  to  forget  his  mission,  a 
temptation  which  had  come  to  life  many  tunes  after  it 
had  first  been  "scotched,  not  killed,"  did  not  now  lift  its 
head.  Max  had  found  out  within  less  than  an  hour  after 
landing  that  which  would  make  him  penniless  and  name- 
less; yet  his  most  pressing  wish  seemed  to  be  to  get  back 
in  time  for  his  appointment  with  Sanda  DeLisle,  and  tell 
her  that  he,  too,  was  going  to  Sidi-bel-Abbes. 


CHAPTER  VII 

SIR   KNIGHT 

MAX  hurried  back  to  the  St.  George,  knowing  that  he 
would  be  late,  and  arrived  somewhat  breathless  on  the 
terrace,  at  a  quarter-past  five.  Miss  DeLisle  would  for- 
give him  when  he  explained.  And  he  would  explain!  He 
was  half  minded  to  tell  everything  to  the  one  human  being 
within  four  thousand  miles  who  cared. 

It  was  March,  and  the  height  of  the  season  in  Algiers. 
Many  people  were  having  tea  on  the  flower-draped  ter- 
race framed  by  a  garden  of  orange  trees  and  palms,  and 
cypresses  rising  like  burnt-out  torches  against  the  blue 
fire  of  the  African  sky.  Max's  eyes  searched  eagerly 
among  the  groups  of  pretty  women  in  white  and  pale 
colours  for  a  slim  figure  in  a  dark  blue  travelling  dress. 
Sanda  had  said  that  she  would  come  out  to  take  a  table 
and  wait  for  him;  but  he  walked  slowly  along  without 
seeing,  even  in  the  distance,  a  girl  alone.  Suddenly, 
however,  he  caught  sight  of  a  dark  blue  toque  and  a  mass 
of  hair  under  it,  that  glittered  like  molten  gold  in  the 
afternoon  sun.  Yes,  there  she  was,  sitting  with  her  back 
to  him,  and  close  to  a  gateway  of  rose-turned  marble 
pillars  taken  from  the  fountain  court  of  some  old  Arab 
palace.  But  —  she  was  not  alone.  A  man  was  with 
her.  She  was  leaning  toward  him,  and  he  toward  her, 

80 


SIR  KNIGHT  81 

their  elbows  on  the  little  table  that  stood  between  them. 

The  man  sat  facing  Max,  who  recognized  him  instantly 
from  many  newspaper  portraits  he  had  seen  —  and  the 
photograph  in  Sanda's  bag.  It  was  Richard  Stanton, 
poseur  and  adventurer,  his  enemies  said,  follower  and 
namesake  of  Richard  Burton:  first  white  man  to  enter 
Thibet;  discoverer  of  a  pigmy  tribe  in  Central  Africa, 
and  —  the  one-time  guardian  of  Sanda  DeLisle. 

Max  had  thought  vaguely  of  the  explorer  as  a  man  who 
must  be  growing  old.  But  now  he  saw  that  Stanton 
was  not  old.  His  face  had  that  look  of  eternal  youth 
which  a  statue  has;  as  if  it  could  never  have  been  younger, 
and  ought  never  to  be  older.  It  was  a  square  face, 
vividly  vital,  with  a  massive  jaw  and  a  high,  square  fore- 
head. The  large  eyes  were  square,  too;  very  wide  open, 
and  of  that  light  yet  burning  blue  which  means  the 
spirit  of  mad  adventure  or  even  fanaticism.  The  skin 
was  tanned  to  a  deep  copper-red  that  made  the  eyes 
appear  curiously  pale  in  contrast;  but  the  top  of  the  fore- 
head, just  where  the  curling  brown  hah-  grew  crisply  up, 
was  very  white. 

The  man  had  thrown  himself  so  completely  into  his 
conversation  with  the  girl,  that  Max,  drawing  nearer, 
could  stare  if  he  chose  without  danger  of  attracting 
Stanton's  attention.  He  did  stare,  taking  in  every  detail 
of  the  virile,  roughly  cut  features  which  Rodin  might 
have  modelled,  and  of  the  strong,  heavy  figure  with 
its  muscular  throat  and  somewhat  stooping  shoulders. 
Richard  Stanton  was  not  handsome;  he  was  rather  ugly, 
Max  thought,  until  a  brief,  flashing  smile  lit  up  the 
sunburnt  face  for  a  second.  But  it  was  in  any  case  a 


82  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

personality  of  intense  magnetic  power.  Even  an  enemy 
must  say  of  Stanton:  "Here  is  a  man."  He  looked  cut 
out  to  be  a  hero  of  adventure,  a  soldier  of  fortune,  and 
in  some  sleeping  depth  of  Max's  nature  a  hitherto  un- 
known emotion  stirred.  He  did  not  analyse  it,  but  it  made 
him  realize  that  he  was  lonely  and  unhappy,  uninterest- 
ingly young;  and  that  he  was  a  person  of  no  importance. 
He  had  come  hurrying  back  to  the  hotel,  anxious  to 
explain  why  he  was  late;  but  now  he  saw  —  or  imagined 
that  he  saw  —  even  from  Sanda's  back,  her  complete 
forgetfulness  of  him.  He  might  have  been  far  later,  and 
she  would  not  have  known  or  cared.  Perhaps  she  would 
be  glad  if  he  had  not  come  at  all. 

Max  had  until  lately  been  subconsciously  aware  (though 
it  was  nothing  to  be  proud  of!)  that  he  was  rather  an 
important  personage  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  He  had 
been  a  petted  child,  and  flattered  and  flirted  with  as  a  cadet 
and  a  young  officer,  one  of  the  richest  and  best  looking  at 
his  post.  Suddenly  he  stood  face  to  face  with  the  fact  that 
he  had  no  longer  a  world  of  his  own.  He  was  an  outsider, 
a  nobody,  not  wanted  here  nor  anywhere.  If  he  could 
have  stolen  away  without  danger  of  rudeness  to  Sanda, 
he  would  have  gone  and  left  her  to  Stanton,  even 
though  by  so  doing  he  lost  his  chance  of  seeing  her  again. 
But  there  was  the  danger  that,  after  all,  she  had  not 
quite  forgotten  him,  and  that  she  might  be  taking  it  for 
granted  that  he  would  keep  his  appointment.  He  de- 
cided not  to  interrupt  the  eager  conversation  at  this 
moment,  but  to  hover  near,  in  case  Miss  DeLisle  looked 
around  as  if  thinking  of  him.  He  hardly  expected  her 
to  do  so,  until  the  talk  flagged,  but  perhaps  some  subtle 


SIR  KNIGHT  83 

thought-transference  was  like  a  reminding  touch  on  her 
shoulder.  She  turned  her  head  and  saw  Max  Doran. 
For  an  instant  she  gazed  at  him  half  dazedly,  as  if  won- 
dering why  he  should  be  there.  Her  face  was  so  trans- 
figured that  she  was  no  longer  the  same  girl;  therefore 
it  did  not  seem  strange  that  she  should  have  forgotten 
so  small  a  thing  as  an  invitation  to  tea  given  to  a  chance 
acquaintance.  Instead  of  being  pale  and  delicately  pretty, 
she  was  a  glowing,  radiant  beauty.  Her  dilated  eyes 
were  almost  black,  her  cheeks  carnation,  her  smiling 
lips  not  coral  pink,  but  coral  red.  She  made  charming 
little  gestures  which  turned  her  instantly  into  a  French 
girl.  "Oh,  Mr.  Doran!"  she  exclaimed.  "Here  is  Mr. 
Stanton.  Only  think,  he's  staying  in  this  hotel,  and  we 
found  each  other  by  accident!  I  came  out  here  and  he 
walked  past.  He  didn't  know  me  —  it's  such  ages  since 
I  saw  him  —  till  I  spoke. " 

Max  had  felt  obliged  to  draw  near,  at  her  call,  and  to 
stand  listening  to  her  explanation;  but  it  was  clear  that  to 
Stanton  he  was  irrelevant.  The  explorer  had  spread  a 
folded  map  on  the  table.  It  was  at  that  they  had  been 
looking,  and  as  Sanda  talked  to  the  newcomer,  Stanton's 
eyes  returned  to  the  map  again.  Max  must  have  been 
dull  of  comprehension  indeed  if  he  had  not  realized  that 
he  was  wanted  by  neither.  The  girl  followed  up  her  little 
preamble  by  introducing  her  new  friend  to  her  old  one, 
and  the  explorer  half  rose  from  his  chair,  bowing  pleasantly 
enough,  though  absent-mindedly;  but  there  was  nothing 
for  Max  to  do  save  to  excuse  himself.  He  apologised  by 
saying  that  his  business  would  keep  him  occupied  for  the 
rest  of  the  afternoon,  and  that  he  must  forego  the  pleasure 


84  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

of  having  tea  with  Miss  DeLisle.  The  expression  of  the 
girl's  face  as  she  said  that  she  was  very  sorry  contradicted 
her  words.  She  was  evidently  enchanted  to  have  Stan  ton 
to  herself,  and  Max  departed,  smiling  bitterly  as  he  thought 
of  his  impatience  to  give  her  the  news.  This  was  what 
all  her  pretty  professions  of  friendship  amounted  to  in  the 
end!  He  had  been  a  fool  to  believe  that  they  meant 
anything  more  than  momentary  politeness.  She  had  not 
referred  to  his  invitation  for  dinner,  so  had  probably  for- 
gotten it  in  the  flush  of  excitement  at  meeting  her  hero. 
It  seemed  cruel  to  recall  it  to  her  memory,  as  by  this  time 
no  doubt  Stanton  and  she  were  planning  to  spend  the 
evening  together,  up  to  the  last  moment.  Still,  the 
situation  was  difficult,  as  she  might  remember  and  con- 
sider it  an  engagement.  Max  decided  at  last  to  send  a 
card  up  to  her  room,  where  she  would  find  it  when  her 
tete  a  tete  with  Stanton  was  over.  He  scribbled  a  few 
words  in  pencil,  saying  that  his  business  would  be  over 
in  an  hour;  that  if  Miss  DeLisle  cared  to  see  him  he  would 
be  delighted;  but  she  must  not  consider  herself  in  any  way 
bound.  He  did  not  even  mention  the  fact  which  a  little 
while  ago  he  had  been  eager  to  tell:  that  he  was  going  to 
Sidi-bel-Abbes.  Perhaps,  as  Stanton  was  a  friend  of 
Colonel  DeLisle's,  he,  too,  was  on  his  way  there,  in  which 
case  Max  would  lurk  in  the  background.  The  card,  in 
an  envelope,  he  gave  to  the  concierge,  and  then  went 
gloomily  out  to  walk  and  think  things  over.  Passing 
the  terrace  he  could  not  resist  glancing  at  the  table  nearest 
the  marble  pillars.  The  two  still  sat  there,  absorbed  in 
each  other,  their  heads  bent  over  the  map.  Stanton  looked 
up  as  if  in  surprise  when  a  waiter  appeared  with  a  tray. 


SIR  KNIGHT  85 

They  had  apparently  asked  for  tea,  and  then  forgotten 
the  order. 

During  that  hour  of  absence  Max  Doran  passed  some  of 
the  worst  moments  of  his  life.  He  lived  over  again  his 
anguish  at  Rose's  death;  heard  again  her  confession  which, 
like  a  sharp  knife,  with  one  stroke  had  cut  him  loose  from 
ties  of  love;  and  gazed  ahead  into  a  future  swept  bare 
of  all  old  friendships,  luxuries,  and  pleasures.  His  "busi- 
ness," of  which  he  had  made  much  to  Miss  DeLisle,  con- 
sisted solely  in  walking  down  the  Mustapha  hill  from  the 
garden  of  the  Hotel  St.  George  to  the  small  white-painted 
post-office,  and  there  sending  off  two  telegrams.  One  was 
to  Edwin  Reeves:  the  other  was  the  message  for  which 
Billie  Brookton  had  thriftily  asked  in  her  special  post- 
script. "Have  lost  everything,"  he  wrote  firmly.  "Will 
explain  in  letter  following  and  ask  you  to  treat  it  in  con- 
fidence. Good-bye,  I  hope  you  may  be  happy  always. 
Max." 

As  he  paid  for  the  telegrams  he  wondered  that  the  fram- 
ing of  Billie's  did  not  turn  one  more  screw  of  the  rack 
which  tortured  heart  and  brain,  but  he  felt  no  new  wrench 
in  the  act  of  giving  up  the  girl  whom  all  men  wanted. 
She  seemed  strangely  remote,  as  if  there  had  never  been 
any  chance  of  her  belonging  to  him.  Max  had  something 
like  a  sensation  of  guilt  because  he  could  not  call  up  a 
picture  of  her,  traced  with  the  sharp  clarity  of  an  etching. 
In  thinking  of  Billie,  he  had  merely  an  impressionist 
portrait:  golden  hair,  wonderful  lashes,  and  a  sudden 
upward  look  from  large,  dark  eyes,  set  in  a  face  of  pearly 
whiteness.  Because  Sanda  DeLisle  was  somewhat  of  the 
same  type,  having  yellow-brown  hair,  and  a  small,  fair 


86  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

face,  her  image  would  push  itself  in  front  of  that  other 
far  more  beautiful  image;  far  more  beautiful  at  least,  save 
in  the  one  moment  of  glowing  radiance  which  had  illu- 
mined Sanda,  as  a  rose  —  light  within  might  illumine  a  pale 
lily.  No  woman  on  earth  could  have  been  more  beautiful 
than  she,  at  that  instant;  but  the  magic  fire  had  been 
kindled  by,  and  for,  another  man;  and  if  Max  had  not 
already  guessed,  it  would  have  revealed  her  whole  secret. 

The  impression  was  so  vivid  that  it  clouded  everything 
else,  just  as  a  white  light  focussed  upon  one  figure  on  the 
stage  dims  all  others  there.  He  thought  of  himself,  and 
what  he  should  do  with  life  after  his  mission  was  finished ; 
whether  he  should  take  the  name  of  Delatour,  which  was 
rightfully  his,  or  choose  a  new  one;  yet  suddenly,  in  the 
midst  of  some  pressing  question,  he  would  forget  to  search 
for  the  answer,  as  Sanda  DeLisle's  transfigured  face 
seemed  to  shine  on  him  out  of  darkness. 

He  stayed  away  from  the  hotel  for  precisely  an  hour, 
and  then,  returning,  asked  at  the  desk  of  the  concierge 
whether  there  were  a  message  for  him.  Yes,  there  was 
a  letter.  Max  took  it,  thinking  that  this  was  perhaps 
the  last  time  he  should  ever  see  the  name  of  Doran  on 
an  envelope  addressed  to  him.  The  direction  had  been 
scrawled  in  haste,  evidently,  but  even  so,  the  handwriting 
had  grace  and  character.  Its  delicacy,  combined  with  a 
certain  firmness  and  impulsive  dash,  expressed  to  Max 
the  personality  of  the  writer.  The  letter  was  of  course 
from  Miss  DeLisle;  a  short  note  asking  if  he  would  look 
for  her  on  the  terrace  at  six-thirty.  She  would  be  alone 
then.  Max  glanced  at  the  hall  clock.  It  wanted  only 
three  minutes  of  the  half  hour,  and  he  went  out  at  once. 


SIR  KNIGHT  87 

The  scene  on  the  terrace  was  very  different  from  what 
it  had  been  an  hour  ago.  It  might  have  been  "set"  for 
another  act,  was  the  fancy  that  flashed  through  the 
young  man's  mind.  The  hyacinth-pink  of  the  sunset- 
sky  was  now  faintly  silvered  with  moonlight.  All  the 
gay  groups  of  tea-drinking  people  had  disappeared.  Many 
of  the  crowding  chairs  had  been  taken  away  from 
the  little  tables  and  pushed  back  against  the  irregu- 
lar wall  of  the  house.  The  floor  was  being  slowly  inlaid 
with  strips  of  shadow-ebony  and  moon-silver.  Even  the 
perfume  of  the  flowers  seemed  changed.  Those  which 
had  some  quality  of  mystery  and  sensuous  sadness  in 
their  scent  had  prevailed  over  the  others. 

At  first  Max  saw  no  one,  and  supposed  that  Miss 
DeLisle  had  not  yet  come  to  keep  the  appointment; 
but  as  he  slowly  paced  the  length  of  the  terrace,  he  dis- 
cerned, standing  on  the  farther  side  of  the  pillar-gateway, 
a  figure  that  paused  close  to  the  carved  balustrade  and 
looked  out  over  the  garden.  There  was  a  suggestion  of 
weariness  and  discouragement  in  the  pose,  and  though 
the  form  had  Sanda's  tall  slimness  he  could  hardly  believe 
it  to  be  hers,  until  passing  through  the  gateway  he  had 
come  quite  close  to  her.  She  turned  at  the  sound  of 
footsteps;  and  in  the  rose-and-silver  twilight  he  could 
see  that  her  eyes  were  full  of  tears. 

Somehow  it  struck  him  as  characteristic  of  the  girl 
that  she  should  not  try  to  pretend  she  had  not  been 
crying.  He  could  scarcely  imagine  her  being  self-con- 
scious enough  to  pretend  anything. 

"Is  it  half-past  six  already?"  she  asked,  in  a  very 
little  voice,  almost  like  that  of  a  child  who  had  been 


88  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

punished.  "I'm  glad  you've  come.  Will  you  forgive 
me?" 

"Forgive  you  for  what?  "  Max  asked,  though  he  guessed 
what  she  meant,  and  added  hastily,  "I'm  sure  there's 
nothing  to  forgive." 

"Yes,  there  is, "  she  insisted;  "you  know  that  as  well  as 
I  do.  But  you  will  forgive  me,  because  —  because  I  think 
you  must  have  understood.  I  was  not  myself  at  all. " 

Max  hesitated  and  stammered.  He  did  not  dare 
admit  how  well  he  had  understood,  though  it  seemed  a 
moment  for  speaking  clear  truths,  here  in  this  wonderful 
garden  which  they  two  had  to  themselves,  with  the  magic 
light  of  sunset  and  moonrise  shining  into  their  souls. 

"You  needn't  be  afraid  of  shaming  me,"  the  girl  went 
on.  "I  felt  that  you  understood  everything,  so  we  can 
talk  now,  when  I've  come  back  a  little  to  myself.  I 
didn't  mind  your  seeing,  then,  because  everything  seemed 
unimportant  except  —  just  him,  and  my  being  there  with 
him.  And  I  don't  mind  even  now,  because  there's  so 
much  that's  the  same  in  my  life  and  yours.  I  feel  (as  I 
felt  before  I  was  carried  out  of  myself)  that  we've  drifted 
together  at  a  time  when  we  can  help  each  other.  You 
can  forgive  me  for  being  selfish  and  thoughtless  to  you, 
because  I  was  at  a  great  moment  of  my  life,  and  you 
realized  it.  Didn't  you?" 

"Yes,"  said  Max. 

"I've  always  adored  him.  He  was  the  one  I  meant, 
of  course,  when  I  told  you  about  caring  for  somebody," 
Sanda  confessed.  "You  see,  my  father  has  never  let 
me  love  him,  in  a  personal  sort  of  way.  He  has  held  me 
off,  though  I  hope  it's  going  to  be  different  when  he  sees 


SIR  KNIGHT  89 

me.  Sir  Knight  (that's  what  I  always  called  Richard, 
ever  since  I  was  small)  was  very  kind  whenever  he  had 
time.  He  didn't  mind  my  worshipping  him.  He  never 
wrote,  because  he  was  too  busy;  but  when  he  came  home 
from  his  wonderful  expeditions  and  adventures,  he  gen- 
erally had  some  present  for  me.  I've  always  followed 
him  as  far  as  I  could,  through  the  newspapers,  and  —  I 
knew  he  was  somewhere  in  Algeria  now.  I'm  afraid  — 
that's  partly  what  made  my  wish  to  come  so  —  terribly, 
irresistibly  strong.  I  didn't  quite  realize  that,  until  I  saw 
him.  Honestly,  I  thought  it  was  because  I  couldn't  live 
with  my  aunts  any  longer,  and  because  I  wanted  so  much 
to  win  my  father  before  it  was  too  late.  But  meeting 
Richard  here,  unexpectedly,  when  I  imagined  him  some- 
where in  the  South,  showed  me  —  the  truth  about  myself. 
I'd  been  so  anxious  for  you  to  come  back,  and  to  hear  all 
that  had  happened  to  you;  but  meeting  him  put  every- 
thing else  out  of  my  head!" 

"  It  was  natural, "  said  Max.  "You  wouldn't  be  human 
if  it  hadn't." 

"  I  think  it  was  inhuman.  For  when  I  remembered  — 
other  things,  I  didn't  seem  to  care.  I  was  —  glad  when 
you  said  you  had  business  and  couldn't  stay  to  tea.  I 
hoped  you'd  forget  that  you'd  asked  me  to  dinner,  be- 
cause I  wanted  so  much  to  have  it  with  Sir  Knight  — 
with  Richard.  I  thought  he'd  be  sure  to  invite  me,  and 
take  me  to  the  train  afterward.  I  was  going  to  apolo- 
gize to  you  as  well  as  I  could;  but  even  if  you'd  been  hurt, 
I  was  ready  to  sacrifice  you  for  him. " 

"Please  don't  punish  yourself  by  confessing  to  me," 
Max  broke  in.  "Indeed  it's  not  necessary.  I " 


90  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

"I'm  not  doing  it  to  punish  myself,"  Sanda  exclaimed. 
"I've  been  punished  —  oh,  sickeningly  punished!  —  al- 
ready. I'm  confessing  to  you  because  —  I  want  our 
friendship  to  go  on  as  if  I  hadn't  done  anything  ungrateful 
and  cruel  to  spoil  it.  I'm  trying  to  atone." 

"You've  done  that  a  thousand  times  over,"  Max  com- 
forted her,  feeling  that  he  ought  to  be  comforted  at  the 
same  time,  yet  aware  that  it  was  not  so.  He  began  to 
realize  that  he  was  boyishly  jealous  of  the  great  man  whose 
blaze  of  glory  had  made  his  poor  rushlight  of  friendship 
flicker  into  nothingness. 

"Then  if  I  have  atoned,  tell  me  quickly  your  news," 
said  the  girl. 

"The  news  is,  that  I  haven't  any  past  which  belongs  to 
me  —  and  God  knows  whether  I've  a  future."  Max  gave 
lightness  to  the  sombre  words  with  a  laugh.  . 

"Then  the  worst  has  happened  to  you?" 

"One  might  call  it  that."     Still  he  managed  to  laugh. 

"Are  you  very  miserable?" 

"  I  don't  know.     I  haven't  had  time  to  think." 

"Don't  take  time  —  yet.  Stay  with  me,  as  we  planned 
before  —  before 

"  But  Mr.  Stanton?     Aren't  you " 

"No,  I'm  not.  He  left  me  fifteen  minutes  after  you 
went.  I  shan't  see  him  again." 

"Not  at  the  train?" 

"No,  not  anywhere.  You  see,  he  has  such  important 
things  to  do,  he  hasn't  time  to  bother  much  with  —  with  a 
person  he  still  thinks  of  as  a  little  girl.  Why,  I  told  you, 
he  would  hardly  have  known  me  if  I  hadn't  spoken  to 
him !  He's  going  away  to-morrow,  leaving  for  Touggourt. 


SIR  KNIGHT  91 

There  are  all  sorts  of  exciting  preparations  to  make  for 
a  tremendous  expedition  he  means  to  undertake,  though 
it  will  be  months  before  he  can  be  ready  to  start.  He  can 
think  of  nothing  else  just  now.  Oh,  it  was  only  'How 
do  you  do?'  and  'Good-bye'  between  us,  I  assure  you, 
over  there  at  the  little  tea-table  I'd  been  keeping  for  you 
and  me." 

"It  didn't  look  like  anything  so  superficial,"  Max  found 
himself  trying  once  more  to  console  her.  "I'm  sure  it 
must  really  have  meant  a  lot  to  him,  meeting  you.  I 
could  see  even  in  the  one  glance  I  had,  how  absorbed  he 
was " 

"Yes,  in  his  map!  He  was  pointing  out  his  route  to 
me,  after  Touggourt.  He's  chosen  Touggourt  for  his 
starting-place,  because  the  railway  has  just  been  brought 
as  far  as  there.  And  there's  a  man  in  Touggourt  —  an 
old  Arab  explorer  —  he  wants  to  persuade  to  go  with 
him  if  he's  strong  enough.  He  —  and  some  other  Arab 
Richard  came  to  Algiers  to  see,  are  the  only  two  men 
alive,  apparently,  who  firmly  believe  in  the  Lost  Oasis 
that  Sir  Knight  means  to  try  to  find,  when  he  can  get  his 
caravan  together,  and  start  across  the  desert  early  next 
autumn  after  the  hot  weather." 

"The  Lost  Oasis?  I  never  heard  of  it,"  said  Max. 
"  Is  there  really  such  a  place  somewhere?  " 

"Richard  doesn't  know.  He  only  believes  in  it;  and 
says  nearly  every  one  thinks  he's  insane.  But  you  must 
have  heard  —  I  thought  every  one  had  heard  the  old 
legend  about  a  Lost  Oasis. —  lost  for  thousands  of  years?" 

"I'm  afraid  not.  I  haven't  any  desert  lore."  As  Max 
made  this  answer,  last  night's  dream  came  back,  rising 


92  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

for  an  instant  before  his  eyes  like  a  shimmering  picture, 
a  monochrome  of  ochre-yellow.  Then  it  faded,  and  he 
saw  again  the  silver  sky  behind  darkening  pines,  plumed 
date-palms,  the  delicate  fringe  of  pepper  trees,  and  black 
columns  of  towering  cypress. 

"All  mine  has  come  from  Sir  Knight:  stories  he's  told 
me  and  books  he's  given  me.  Long  ago  he  talked  about 
the  Lost  Oasis.  I  thought  of  it  as  a  thrilling  fairy  story. 
But  he  believes  it  may  exist,  somewhere  far,  far  east, 
beyond  walls  of  mountains  and  shifting  sand-dunes,  be- 
tween the  Sahara  and  the  Libyan  deserts." 

"Wouldn't  other  explorers  have  found  it,  if  it  were 
there?" 

"Lots  have  tried,  and  been  lost  themselves:  or  else 
they've  given  up  hope,  after  terrible  privations,  and  have 
struggled  back  to  their  starting-place.  But  Richard 
says  he  has  pledged  himself  to  succeed  where  the  rest 
have  failed,  or  else  to  die.  It  was  awful  to  hear  him  say 
that  —  and  to  see  the  look  in  his  eyes." 

"He's  done  some  wonderful  things,"  Max  said,  trying 
to  speak  with  enthusiasm. 

"Yes;  but  this  seems  different,  and  more  terrifying 
than  any  of  his  other  adventures,  because  in  them  he  had 
men  for  his  worst  enemies.  This  time  his  enemy  will  be 
nature.  And  its  venturing  into  the  unknown  —  almost 
like  trying  to  find  the  way  to  another  world.  Everybody 
knew  there  was  a  Thibet  and  a  Central  Africa,  and  what 
the  dangers  would  be  like  there;  but  no  one  knows  any- 
thing of  this  place  —  if  it  is  a  place." 

"What's  the  story  that  makes  Mr.  Stan  ton  feel  the 
thing  is  worth  risking?"  Max  asked. 


SIR  KNIGHT  93 

"The  story  is,  that  there's  a  blank  in  Egyptian  history 
which  could  be  filled  up  and  accounted  for,  if  a  great  mass 
of  people  had  moved  away  and  begun  a  new  civilization 
somewhere,  safe  from  all  the  enemies  who  had  disturbed 
them  and  stolen  their  treasure." 

"  Splendid  story!  But  it  sounds  as  much  of  a  fable  as 
any  other  myth,  doesn't  it?  " 

"It  might,  if  there  hadn't  been  other  stories  of  lost 
oases  which  have  proved  to  be  true." 

"I  never  heard  of  them,"  Max  confessed  his  ignorance. 

"Nor  I,  except  from  Sir  Knight.  He  says  that  only 
lately  people  have  found  several  oases  south  of  Tripoli, 
which  were  talked  about  before  in  the  same  legendary 
way  as  this  one  he's  going  to  search  for.  Only  a  few 
people  know  about  them  now:  but  they  are  known. 
And  they're  inhabited  by  Jews  who  fled  by  tribes  from 
the  Romans  when  Solomon's  Temple  was  destroyed, 
in  the  reign  of  the  Emperor  Titus.  They  never  trade, 
except  with  each  other,  but  have  everything  they  need 
in  their  hidden  dwelling-places.  They  speak  the  ancient 
language  that  was  spoken  in  Palestine  all  those  centuries 
ago,  and  wear  the  same  costume,  and  keep  to  the  same 
laws.  That's  why  Sir  Knight  thinks  the  greater  Lost 
Oasis  may  exist,  having  been  even  better  hidden  than 
those.  There  was  a  famous  explorer  named  Rholf  who 
believed  that  he'd  found  traces  of  a  way  to  it,  but  he 
lost  them  again.  And  there  were  Caillaud  and  Cat,  and 
other  names  he  spoke  of  to-day,  that  I've  forgotten.  I 
wish,  though,  that  he  were  not  going  —  or  else  that  I 
could  go  with  him,  in  the  way  I  used  to  plan  when  I  was 
small. "  The  girl  paused  and  sighed. 


94  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

"What  way?" 

"Oh,  it  was  only  nonsense  —  silly,  romantic  nonsense, 
that  I'd  got  out  of  books.  I  used  to  make  up  stories 
about  myself  joining  Sir  Knight  on  some  expedition, 
dressed  as  a  boy,  and  he  not  recognizing  me."  She 
laughed  a  little.  "I  constantly  saved  his  life,  of  course! 
But  now  we  won't  talk  of  him  any  more.  You  and  I 
will  make  up  a  story  about  ourselves.  We're  alone  on  a 
desert  island,  and  we  have  to  find  food  and  shelter,  and 
be  as  comfortable  and  as  happy  as  we  can.  In  the 
story,  you  have  cause  to  hate  me,  but  you  don't,  because 
you're  generous.  So  you  forage  for  game  and  fruit,  and 
help  me  to  escape.  Which  means,  if  you've  really  for- 
given my  horridness,  that  you'll  take  pity  on  me  and  ask 
me  to  dine  with  you  before  you  put  me  into  my  train 
as  you  promised." 

"I  will  do  all  that,"  said  Max,  almost  eagerly.  "And 
if  you'll  let  me  I'll  go  with  you  in  the  train  to  Sidi-bel- 
Abbes." 

"Oh,  no!"  she  exclaimed.  "I  couldn't  consent  to  such 
a  sacrifice." 

"  I  must  go  either  by  your  train  or  another. " 

"Why  — why?" 

"I've  found  out  that  the  woman  I  came  to  search  for 
is  not  only  alive,  but  living  at  Sidi-bel- Abbes. " 

"It's  Fate!"  the  girl  half  whispered.  "But  what 
Fate?  What  does  it  all  mean?" 

"I've  been  asking  myself  that  question,"  Max  said, 
"and  I  can't  find  an  answer  —  yet. " 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ON    THE    STATION    PLATFORM 

THEY  dined  together  in  a  glass-fronted  restaurant  open- 
ing out  on  to  the  terrace,  and  Sanda  was  sweet,  but 
absent-minded.  Max  could  guess  where  her  thoughts 
were,  and  almost  hated  Stanton.  How  could  the  man 
let  some  wretched  engagement,  with  a  few  French 
officers,  keep  him  from  this  poor  little  girl  who  adored 
him?  How  could  Stanton  let  her  go  alone  to  meet  her 
unnatural  father  (it  was  thus  that  Max  thought  of  Colo- 
nel DeLisle)  when  as  her  one-time  guardian  he  might 
have  taken  her  to  Sidi-bel-Abbes  himself,  and  persuaded 
his  old  friend,  DeLisle,  to  be  lenient.  All  that  Max  had 
heard  against  the  explorer  came  back  to  him,  and  he  was 
ready  to  believe  Stanton  the  cruel  and  selfish  egoist  that 
gossip  sketched  him.  Poor  Sanda! 

Miss  DeLisle  had  meant  to  finish  her  long  journey  as  she 
had  begun  it,  second-class;  but  Max  persuaded  the  girl  to 
let  him  take  for  her  a  first-class  ticket,  with  coupS  lit,  in 
a  compartment  for  women,  as  far  as  the  station  where  at 
dawn  they  must  change  for  Sidi-bel-Abbes.  She  was  sur- 
prised at  thesmallness  of  the  price,  but  did  not  suspect  that 
she  owed  her  new  friend  anything  more  substantial  than 
gratitude  for  all  the  trouble  he  had  taken  for  her  comfort. 

Max  himself  went  second-class,  packed  in  with  seven 

95 


96  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

men  who  would  have  thought  opening  the  window  a  symp- 
tom of  insanity. 

One  of  the  seven  was  the  man  with  whom  Sanda  De- 
Lisle  had  chatted  on  board  the  General  Morel  at  dinner. 
He  was  the  hero  of  the  compartment,  for  he  was  going 
to  Sidi-bel-Abbes  to  fight  a  boxing  match  with  the 
champion  of  the  Legion,  a  soldier  named  Pelle.  Four  of 
the  travellers  (three  men  of  Algiers  and  a  youth  of  Sidi- 
bel-Abbes)  were  accompanying  the  French  boxer,  having 
met  him  at  the  ship, 

Dozing  and  waking,  Max  heard  excited  talk  of  la  boxe 
and  the  coming  event.  He  was  vaguely  interested,  for 
he  had  been  the  champion  boxer  of  his  regiment  —  a 
hundred  years  ago !  —  but  he  was  too  weary  in  body  and 
mind  to  care  much  about  a  match  at  Sidi-bel-Abbes.  When 
he  was  not  trying  to  sleep,  he  was  mentally  composing 
a  letter  to  his  colonel,  with  discreet  explanations,  and  a 
justification  of  his  forthcoming  immediate  resignation 
from  the  army:  or  else  a  written  explanation  of  his  fare- 
well to  Billie,  f ollowing  up  the  telegram ;  or  thinking  out 
business  directions  to  Edwin  Reeves.  Suddenly,  however, 
as  he  was  dully  wondering  how  best  to  send  the  heiress  to 
New  York  without  going  back  himself,  a  name  spoken 
almost  in  his  ear  had  the  blinding  effect  of  a  searchlight 
upon  his  brain. 

"La  petite  Josephine  Delatour,"  said  the  young  man 
who  lived  at  Bel- Abbes.  He  was  evidently  answering 
some  question  which  Max  had  not  caught. 

"The  handsomest,  would  you  call  her?"  disputed  a 
commercial  traveller,  who  also  knew  the  town.  "Ah, 
that,  no!  she  is  too  strange,  too  bizarre." 


ON  THE  STATION  PLATFORM  97 

"But  her  strangeness  is  her  charm,  mon  ami!  She 
has  eyes  of  topaz,  like  those  of  a  young  panther.  If  she 
were  not  bizarre,  would  she  —  a  little  nobody  at  all  —  be 
strong  enough  to  draw  the  smart  young  officers  after  her? 
There  are  girls  in  Bel-Abbes,  daughters  of  rich  mer- 
chants, who  are  jealous  of  the  secretary  at  the  Hotel 
Splendide.  Before  she  came,  it  was  only  the  officers  of 
high  rank  who  messed  there.  Now  it  is  also  the  lieuten- 
ants. It  is  not  the  food,  but  Mademoiselle  Josephine 
who  attracts ! " 

"Once  upon  a  time  she  thought  me  and  my  comrades 
good  enough  for  a  flirtation,"  said  the  commercial  traveller. 
"But  she  looks  higher  in  these  days,  especially  since  her 
namesake  in  the  Spahis  joined  his  regiment  at  Bel-Abbes. 
She  told  me  they  had  found  out  that  they  were  cousins." 

"The  lieutenant  doesn't  go  about  boasting  of  the  rela- 
tionship," laughed  the  youth  from  Bel-Abbes.  "He 
comes  to  my  father's  cafe,  which  is  the  best  in  the  town, 
as  you  well  know.  If  any  one  speaks  to  him  of  la  petite, 
he  laughs :  and  it  is  a  laugh  she  would  not  like." 

Max's  ears  tingled.  He  felt  as  if  he  were  eavesdropping. 
He  wished  to  hear  more,  though  at  the  same  time  it 
seemed  that  he  had  no  right  to  listen.  Luckily  or  un- 
luckily, the  boxer  broke  in  and  changed  the  subject. 

Early  in  the  morning,  passengers  for  Sidi-bel-Abbes 
had  to  descend  from  the  train  going  on  to  Oran,  and  take 
a  slow  one,  on  a  branch  line.  It  was  a  very  slow  one, 
indeed,  and  it  was  also  late,  so  that  it  would  be  nearly 
midday  and  the  hour  for  dejeuner  when  they  reached 
their  destination.  Max  saw  himself  inquiring  for  Made- 
moiselle Delatour  just  at  the  moment  when  the  admirers 


98  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

of  her  topaz  eyes  were  assembling  for  their  meal.  He 
did  not  like  the  prospect;  but  said  nothing  of  his  own  wor- 
ries to  Sanda,  whom  he  joined  on  changing  trains.  Now 
the  meeting  with  her  father  was  so  near,  she  had  to  hold 
her  courage  with  both  hands.  She  had  realized  for  the 
first  time  that  she  would  not  know  where  to  look  for 
Colonel  DeLisle.  He  might  be  in  barracks.  She  could 
hardly  go  to  him  there.  He  would  perhaps  be  angry, 
should  a  girl  arrive,  announcing  herself  as  his  daughter, 
at  the  house  where  he  had  rooms.  The  third  alternative 
was  the  Hotel  Splendide,  where  he  took  his  meals.  He 
might  already  be  there  when  she  reached  Sidi-bel- Abbes. 
What  a  place  for  a  first  meeting!  Max  agreed,  sym- 
pathetically. It  seemed  that  everything  at  Sidi-bel- Abbes 
must  happen  at  the  Hotel  Splendide ! 

"If  you  could  only  be  with  me  and  help,  as  you  have 
helped  me  all  along ! "  she  sighed.  "Though  of  course  you 

can't.  If  Sir  Knight  had  come But  I  couldn't  easily 

explain  you  to  my  father.  At  least,  not  just  at  present." 

Max  saw  this,  even  more  clearly  than  she  saw  it.  It 
would  indeed  be  difficult  for  a  strange  new  daughter  to  ex- 
plain in  a  few  brief  words  a  still  more  strange  young  man 
to  such  a  person  as  Colonel  DeLisle.  If  he  were  to  be 
introduced  or  even  mentioned  at  all,  Max  felt  that  it 
would  have  to  be  later,  and  must  depend  on  the  word  of 
the  redoubtable  colonel.  He  suggested  to  Sanda  as  dis- 
creetly as  he  could  that  he  would  keep  out  of  her  way  at 
the  hotel,  unless  she  summoned  him.  But,  he  added,  he 
would  have  to  be  there  for  a  short  time  at  all  events, 
because  his  business  was  taking  him  precisely  to  the  Hotel 
Splendide. 


ON  THE  STATION  PLATFORM  99 

"The  person  you're  looking  for  is  staying  there?" 
asked  Sanda. 

"She's  the  secretary  of  the  hotel."  Max  hesitated  an 
instant,  then,  realizing  from  the  words  he  had  overheard 
how  conspicuous  a  character  Josephine  Delatour  evidently 
was,  he  thought  best  to  tell  Sanda  something  more  of  his 
story  than  he  had  told  her  yet.  He  sketched  the  version, 
vindicating  his  foster-mother,  which  he  had  given  to  Billie 
Brookton  and  the  Reeveses  —  a  version  which  all  the 
world  at  home  would,  he  believed,  soon  hear. 

"So  that  is  it?"  said  Sanda.  "You're  giving  up  every- 
thing to  this  girl.  Do  you  think  she  will  take  it?" 

"I  wish  I  were  as  sure  of  what  I  shall  do  next  as  I  am 
sure  of  that,"  laughed  Max.  If  there  had  ever  been  any 
doubt  in  his  mind  as  to  Josephine's  attitude,  it  had 
vanished  while  listening  to  the  talk  of  her  in  the  train. 

"I  know  what  you  ought  to  do  next,"  Sanda  said. 
"  You  ought  to  be  what  you  have  been  —  a  soldier." 

"I  shall  always  be,  at  heart,  I  think,"  Max  confessed. 
"But  soldier  life  is  over  for  me,  so  far  as  I  can  see 
ahead." 

"I  wonder "  she  began  eagerly,  then  stopped 

abruptly. 

"You  wonder  —  what?" 

"I  daren't  say  it." 

"Please  dare." 

"I  mustn't.  It  would  be  wrong.  I  might  be  horribly 
sorry  afterward.  And  yet 

She  silenced  herself  with  a  little  gasp.  He  urged  her 
no  more,  but  stared  almost  unseeingly  out  of  the  window 
at  the  roofed  farmhouses,  and  the  yellow  hills,  like  re- 


100  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

claimed  desert,  with  bright  patches  of  cultivation,  and  a 
far,  floating  background  of  the  blue  Thesala  mountains. 

Sidi-bel-Abbes  at  last !  and  the  train  slowing  down  along 
the  platform  of  an  insignificant  station,  which  might  have 
been  in  the  South  of  France,  save  for  a  few  burnoused 
Arabs.  There  was  a  green  glimpse  of  olives  and  palms, 
and  taller  plane  trees,  under  a  serene  sky;  and  in  the 
distance  the  high  fortified  walls  of  yellow  and  dark  gray 
stone,  which  ringed  in  the  northermost  stronghold  of  the 
Foreign  Legion. 

"Sidi-bel-Abbes!"  a  deep  voice  shouted  musically 
from  one  end  of  the  platform  to  the  other,  as  the  train 
came  in;  and  the  name  thrilled  through  Max  Doran's 
veins  as  it  had  not  ceased  to  thrill  since  yesterday. 
More  strongly  than  ever  he  had  the  impression  that  some 
great  things  would  happen  to  him  here,  or  begin  to 
happen,  and  carry  him  on  elsewhere,  beyond  those  yellow 
hills.  Deep  down  in  him  excitement  stirred  in  the  dark, 
like  a  dazed  traveller  up  before  the  dawn,  groping  for  the 
door  through  which  he  must  pass  to  begin  his  journey. 
All  the  more  quietly,  however,  because  of  what  he  secretly 
felt,  Max  took  Sanda's  bag  and  his  own,  and  gave  her  a 
hand  for  the  high  step  from  the  train  to  platform.  There 
they  became  units  in  a  crowd  strange  to  see  at  a  little 
provincial  station;  a  crowd  to  be  met  at  few  other  places 
in  the  world. 

The  French  boxer  was  not  the  only  guest  of  importance 
this  train  brought  to  Sidi-bel-Abbes.  At  the  far  end  of 
the  platform,  where  the  first-class  carriages  had  stopped, 
a  group  of  officers  in  full  dress  were  collected  round  a 


ON  THE  STATION  PLATFORM  101 

man  who  wore  civilian  clothes  awkwardly,  as  an  old  sol- 
dier wears  them.  There  was  the  sensationally  splendid 
costume  of  the  Spahis;  scarlet  cloak  and  full  trousers; 
the  beautiful  pale  blue  of  the  Chasseurs  d'Afrique,  and  a 
plainer  uniform  which  Max  guessed  to  be  that  of  the 
Foreign  Legion.  The  boxer  had  his  committee  de  re- 
ception also;  a  dozen  or  more  dark,  fat,  loud-talking 
proprietors  of  cafes,  or  tradefolk  keen  on  "le  sport." 
These,  and  the  lounging  Arabs,  might  have  interested 
strangers  to  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  if  there  had  been  nothing 
better  worth  attention.  But  owing  to  the  lateness  of  the 
train,  it  had  come  in  almost  simultaneously  with  another 
made  up  of  windowless  wagons  for  men,  horses  or  freight, 
which  had  not  yet  discharged  its  load.  Out  from  the 
wide  doorway  of  the  long  car  labelled  "32  hommes,  6  che- 
vanx,"  was  streaming  an  extraordinary  procession;  tall, 
bearded  men  with  the  high  cheek-bones  and  sad,  wide- 
apart  eyes  of  the  Slav:  a  blond,  round-cheeked  boy  whose 
shy  yet  stolid  face  could  only  have  been  bred  in  Germany, 
or  Alsace;  sharp-featured,  rat-eyed  fellows  who  might 
have  been  collected  at  Montmartre  or  in  a  Marseilles 
slum :  others  who  were  nondescripts  of  no  complexion  and 
no  expression;  waifs  from  anywhere:  a  brown-skinned 
Spaniard  and  an  Italian  or  two:  a  Negro  with  the  sophis- 
ticated look  of  a  New  York  "darkee";  a  melancholy, 
hooded  Arab,  and  a  fierce-faced  Moor;  types  utterly  at 
variance,  yet  with  one  likeness  which  bound  them  together 
like  a  convict's  chain:  weariness  and  stains  of  long,  hard 
travelling,  which  thrust  the  few  well-dressed  men  down 
to  the  level  of  the  shabbiest.  Some  were  almost  middle 
aged;  some  were  youths  hardly  yet  at  the  regulation 


102  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

enlistment  age  of  eighteen;  a  few  one  might  take  for  broken- 
down  gentlemen;  more  who  looked  like  workmen  out  of 
a  job,  and  one  or  two  unmistakably  old  soldiers,  eager- 
eyed  as  lost  dogs  who  had  found  their  way  home:  a 
strange  gathering  of  individuals  to  find  stumbling  out  of 
a  freight  train  at  a  country  station  of  a  French  colony; 
but  this  was  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  headquarters  of  La  Legion 
Etrangere:  and  as  the  tired,  dirty  men  tumbled  out  on  to 
the  platform,  everybody  stared  openly  as  a  corporal 
with  a  high  kepi,  a  buttoned-back  blue  overcoat,  and 
loose,  red  trousers  tucked  into  military  boots,  formed 
the  crew  into  lines  of  four. 

Even  the  officers  at  the  end  of  the  platform  gazed  at 
the  soiled  scarecrows  who  had  to  be  made  into  soldiers: 
for  this  being  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  there  was  no  difficulty 
in  guessing  that  the  twenty-eight  or  thirty  men  of  six  or 
seven  nations  were  recruits  of  the  Legion  of  Foreigners. 
The  draggled  throng  was  quietly  indicated  to  the  visitor 
in  civilian  clothes,  who  nodded  appreciatively  and  then 
turned  away.  But  the  boxer's  brigade  explained  the  un- 
fortunate wretches  so  loudly  and  unflatteringly  to  their 
guest  that  haggard  faces  flushed  and  quivering  lips 
stiffened;  while  at  the  gateway  of  exit,  a  motionless 
row  of  non-commissioned  officers,  watching  for  deserters, 
regarded  "les  bleus"  critically,  yet  indifferently. 

Max,  whose  quick  imagination  made  him  almost  pain- 
fully sensitive  for  others,  felt  hot  and  sorry  for  the  men 
herded  together  by  misfortune.  He  had  read  sensational 
stories  of  the  Foreign  Legion,  and  found  himself  hypno- 
tized into  looking  for  brutal  jowls  of  escaped  murderers, 
or  faces  of  pallid  aristocrats  in  torn  evening  clothes, 


ON  THE  STATION  PLATFORM  103 

splashed  with  blood.  Among  these  men  of  mystery 
or  sorrow  there  were,  however,  few  startling  types  which 
caught  the  eye.  But  one  man  —  young,  tall,  straight 
as  an  arrow  —  running  the  gauntlet  of  jokes  and  stares 
with  fierce,  repressed  defiance,  turned  suddenly  to  look  at 
Max  and  Sanda. 

Where  to  place  him  in  life,  Max  could  not  tell.  He 
might  be  prince  or  peasant  by  birth,  since  prince  and 
peasant  are  akin  at  heart,  and  ever  remote  from  the 
middle-classes  as  from  Martians.  He  wore  a  soft,  gray 
felt  hat,  smeared  with  coal-dust  from  the  engine.  The 
collar  of  his  dusty  black  overcoat  was  turned  up;  it 
actually  looked  like  an  evening  coat.  His  trousers  were 
black  too,  and  Max  had  an  impression  of  patent  leather 
shoes  glittering  through  dust.  But  these  details  were 
only  accessories  to  the  picture,  and  interesting  because 
of  the  wearer's  face.  It  was  dark  as  that  of  a  Spaniard 
from  Andalusia,  with  the  high,  proud  features  of  an  Indian. 
It  had  been  clean-shaven  a  few  days  ago;  and  from  two 
haggard  hollows  a  pair  of  wild  black  eyes  flashed  one 
glance  at  Max  —  the  only  man  who  had  not  seemed  to 
stare.  Face  and  look  were  unforgettable.  It  seemed 
to  Max  that  some  appeal  had  been  flung  to  him.  He 
could  hardly  keep  himself  from  striding  after  the  tall 
figure,  to  ask:  "What  is  it  you  want  me  to  do?"  And 
Sanda  also  had  been  impressed.  He  heard  her  murmur 
under  her  breath,  "Poor  man!  What  wonderful  eyes!" 

Nobody  moved  from  the  platform  until  the  corporal 
had  called  the  roll  of  names  —  German,  French,  Spanish, 
Italian,  Russian,  Arab  —  and  had  marched  his  batch  of 
recruits  briskly  through  the  guarded  gate.  Max  would 


104  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

have  hurried  Sanda  out  directly  behind  them,  before  the 
crowd  could  secure  all  the  queer,  old-fashioned  cabs  which 
were  waiting,  but  at  that  moment  the  smart  group  of 
officers  moved  forward.  Having  shown  then-  guest  one 
of  the  sights  of  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  they  evidently  expected 
to  take  precedence  of  the  townspeople,  who  gave  no  sign 
of  disputing  their  right.  Max,  following  the  example  of 
others  and  resisting  an  impulse  to  salute,  stood  back  with 
his  companion  to  let  the  uniforms  pass.  Sanda,  pink 
with  excitement,  was  as  usual  all  unconscious  of  self,  and 
vividly  interested  both  in  recruits  and  officers.  The 
latter,  especially  the  young  ones,  were  equally  interested 
in  the  pretty,  well-dressed  girl,  a  stranger  in  Sidi-bel-Abbes 
and  the  one  woman  on  the  platform. 

Max  saw  the  polite  but  admiring  glances,  and  would 
have  liked  to  draw  her  further  away.  He  bent  down  to 
whisper  a  suggestion,  but  Sanda  did  not  hear.  Her 
face,  her  whole  personality,  had  undergone  one  of  those 
swift  changes  characteristic  of  her. 

With  a  fluttering  cry,  she  started  forward,  then  stepped 
nervously  back,  and,  stumbling  against  Max's  foot,  would 
have  fallen  if  he  had  not  caught  her. 

All  his  attention  was  for  her,  yet,  with  his  eyes  on  the 
girl,  he  suddenly  became  conscious  that  something  had 
happened  among  the  officers.  One  man  had  stopped 
abruptly  just  in  front  of  Sanda,  while  others  were  going 
through  the  gate,  hurrying  on  as  if  tactfully  desirous  to 
get  themselves  out  of  the  way.  A  voice  murmured  "  Mon 
Dieu!"  and  having  steadied  Sanda,  Max  saw  standing 
close  to  them  a  small,  rather  dapper  man  with  a  lined 
brown  face,  a  very  square,  smooth-shaven  jaw,  long  gray 


ON  THE  STATION  PLATFORM  105 

eves,  short  gray  hair,  and  the  neat  slimness  of  a  West 
Point  cadet.  He  had  on  his  sleeve  the  five  gold  stripes 
signifying  a  colonel's  rank,  and  was  decorated  with  several 
medals. 

Instantly   Mas   understood  the  situation.    The  one 
thing  that  ought  not  to  have  happened,  had  happened. 


CHAPTER  IX  , 

THE  COLONEL  OF  THE  LEGION 

ALL  SANDA'S  anxiously  laid  plans  were  swept  away  in  the 
wind  of  emotion.  She  and  the  father  she  had  meant  to 
win  with  loving  diplomacy  had  stumbled  upon  each  other 
crudely  in  a  railway  station.  The  dear  resemblance  upon 
which  she  had  founded  her  best  hope  had  struck  Colonel 
DeLisle  like  a  blow  over  the  heart. 

The  dapper  little  officer,  with  the  figure  of  a  boy  and 
the  face  of  a  tragic  mask,  stared  straight  at  the  girl,  with 
the  look  of  one  who  meets  a  ghost  in  daylight.  "  My  God ! 
who  are  you?  "  he  faltered,  in  French.  The  words  seemed 
to  speak  themselves  against  his  will. 

Sanda  was  deathly  pale.  But  she  caught  at  her  cour- 
age as  a  soldier  grasps  his  flag:  " I  am  —  Corisande,  your 
daughter,"  she  answered  in  that  small,  sweet  voice  of  a 
child  with  which  she  had  begged  Max  to  pardon  her, 
yesterday.  And  she  too  spoke  in  French.  "My  father, 
forgive  me  if  I've  done  wrong  to  come  to  you  like  this 
But  I  was  so  unhappy.  I  wanted  so  much  to  see  you. 
And  I've  travelled  such  a  long  way ! " 

For  an  instant  the  man  still  stared  at  her  in  silence. 
He  had  the  air  of  listening  for  a  voice  within  a  voice,  as 
one  listens  through  the  sound  of  running  water  for  its 
tune.  Max,  who  must  now  unfortunately  be  explained 

106 


THE   COLONEL  OF  THE  LEGION         107 

and  accounted  for  in  spite  of  every  difficulty,  found  a 
strange  likeness  between  the  middle-aged  soldier  and  the 
young  girl.  It  was  in  the  eyes:  long,  gray,  haunted  with 
thoughts  and  dreams.  If  Sanda  DeLisle  ever  had  to 
become  acquainted  with  sorrow  her  eyes  would  be  like 
her  father's. 

The  pause  was  but  for  a  second  or  two,  though  it  was 
full  of  suspense  for  the  girl,  and  even  for  Max,  who  forgot 
himself  in  anxiety  for  her.  The  hardness  of  straining 
after  self-control  melted  to  sudden  beauty,  as  Max  had 
seen  Sanda's  face  transfigured.  Never  again,  it  seemed 
to  him  —  no  matter  what  Colonel  DeLisle 's  actions 
might  be  —  could  he  believe  him  to  be  cruel  or  cold. 

"Ma  petite,"  DeLisle  said,  with  a  quiver  in  his  voice 
that  echoed  up  from  heartstrings  swept  by  some  spirit 
hand.  "Can  it  be  true?  You  have  come  —  across  half 
the  world,  to  me?  " 

"Oh,  father,  yes,  it  is  true.  And  always  I've  wanted 
to  come."  Sanda's  voice  caressed  him.  No  man  could 
have  resisted  her  then.  "You're  not  angry?" 

"Mon  Dieu,  no,  I'm  not  angry,  though  my  life  is  not 
the  life  for  a  girl.  I  only  —  for  a  moment  I  thought  I 
saw " 

"I  know,  I  guessed,"  Sanda  gently  filled  up  his  pause. 
"Since  I  began  growing  into  a  woman  every  one  told  me 
I  was  like  —  her.  But  I  wouldn't  send  you  a  photograph. 
For  years  I've  planned  to  surprise  you  —  and  make  you 
care  a  little,  if  I  could." 

"Care!"  he  echoed,  a  look  as  of  anguish  passing  over 
his  face  like  the  shadow  of  a  cloud;  then  leaving  it  clear, 
though  sad  with  the  habitual  sadness  which  had  scored 


108  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

its  many  lines.     "You  have  surprised  me,  indeed.     But 

— "  He  stopped  abruptly,  and  apparently  for  the  first 
time  noticed  the  young  man  standing  near.  Stiffening 
slightly,  Colonel  DeLisle  looked  keenly  at  Max,  his  eyes 
trying  to  solve  the  new  puzzle.  "  But  —  my  daughter, 
you  have  come  to  me  with  — 

"Only  a  friend,"  Sanda  broke  in  desperately,  blushing 
up  to  her  bright  hair.  "A  kind  friend,  Mr.  Doran,  an 
American  who  had  to  travel  to  Sidi-bel- Abbes  on  business 
of  his  own,  and  who's  been  more  good  to  me  than  I  can 
describe.  I  want  him  to  let  me  tell  you  all  about  him, 
and  then  you  will  understand." 

"I  thank  you  in  advance,  Monsieur,"  said  Colonel 
DeLisle,  unbending  again,  and  a  faint  —  a  very  faint  — 
twinkle  brightening  his  eyes,  at  the  thought  of  the  error  he 
had  nearly  made,  and  because  of  Doran's  blush  at  being 
mistaken  for  an  unwelcome  son-in-law. 

"I've  done  nothing,  Monsieur  le  Colonel,"  stammered 
Max.  "I  had  to  come.  I  have  business  with  a  person 
at  the  Hotel  Splendide.  It  is  Mademoiselle  who  is  kind 
to  me  in  saying " 

"Could  he  not  take  me  to  the  hotel  to  wait  for  you?" 
Sanda  cut  in.  "  I  shouldn't  have  interrupted  you  in  such 
a  place  as  this,  and  at  such  a  time,  my  father,  if  I  could 
have  helped  doing  so,  even  though  I  recognized  your 
face  from  the  old  photograph  that  is  my  treasure.  But 
acting  on  impulse  is  my  greatest  fault,  the  aunts  all  say. 
And  when  I  saw  you  I  cried  out  before  I  stopped  to  think. 
Then  I  drew  back,  but  it  was  too  late.  I  have  taken  you 
from  some  duty." 

"I  came  officially  with  my  comrades  to  meet  General 


THE   COLONEL  OF  THE  LEGION         109 

Sauvanne,  who  is  visiting  our  Algerian  garrisons,"  said 
DeLisle.  He  glanced  again  at  Max,  giving  him  one  of 
those  soldier  looks  which  long  experience  has  taught  to 
penetrate  flesh  and  bone  and  brain  down  to  a  man's 
hidden  self.  "It  is  true  that  I  have  no  right  to  excuse 
myself  for  my  own  private  affairs."  He  hesitated,  almost 
imperceptibly,  then  turned  to  Max.  "Add  to  your  past 
kindness  by  taking  my  daughter  to  the  hotel,  Monsieur, 
where  in  my  name  she  will  engage  a  room  for  herself  — 
since,  unfortunately,  I  have  no  home  to  offer  her.  I  will 
go  with  you  both  to  a  cab,  and  then  return  to  duty.  My 
child,  I  will  see  you  again  before  dejeuner" 

Max's  quick  mind  promptly  comprehended  the  full 
meaning  of  Colonel  DeLisle's  seemingly  unconventional 
decision.  Not  only  was  he  being  made  friendly  use  of, 
in  a  complicated  situation,  but  Sanda's  father  wished 
all  who  had  seen  the  girl  arrive  with  a  man  to  know 
once  for  all  that  the  man  had  his  official  approval.  Soon 
Sanda's  relationship  to  the  Colonel  of  the  First  Regiment 
of  the  Foreign  Legion  would  be  known,  and  there  must 
be  no  stupid  gossip  regarding  the  scene  at  the  station. 
As  they  passed  the  other  officers  and  their  guests  (who 
for  these  few  dramatic  moments  had  discreetly  awaited 
developments,  outside  the  platform  gate),  Colonel  De- 
Lisle  lingered  an  instant  to  murmur;  "It  is  my  daughter, 
who  has  come  unexpectedly.  A  young  friend  whom  I  can 
trust  to  see  her  to  the  hotel  will  take  her  there,  and  I  am 
at  your  service  when  I  have  put  them  into  a  cab. " 

"What  do  you  think?"  cried  Sanda,  as  the  rickety 
vehicle  rattled  them  toward  the  nearest  gate  of  the  walled 
town.  "Have  I  failed  with  him  —  or  have  I  succeeded? " 


110  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

"Succeeded,"  Max  answered.     "Don't  you  feel  it?" 
"I  hoped  it.     Oh,  Mr.  Doran,  I  am  going  to  love  him! " 
"  I  don't  wonder, "  Max  said.     "  I'm  sure  he's  worth  it. " 
"Yet  I  saw  by  your  look  when  I  spoke  of  him  before, 
that  you  were  thinking  him  heartless." 
"I  had  no  right  to  think  anything." 
"I  gave  you  the  right,  by  confiding  in  you.     But   I 
didn't  confide  enough,  to  do  my  father  justice.     I  knew  he 
wasn't  heartless,  though  he  couldn't  bear  the  sight  of 
me  when  I  was  a  baby,  and  put  me  out  of  his  life.     He 
has  always  said  that  a  soldier's  life  was  not  for  a  young 
girl  to  share.     I  knew  he  had  a  heart,  because  of  that,  not 
in  spite  of  it.     It  was  that  he  loved  my  mother  so  des- 
perately, and  I'd  robbed  him  of  her.     Now  you've  seen 

him,  you  must  let  me  tell  you  a  little " 

"Would  he  wish  it?" 

"Yes,  if  he  knew  why,  and  if  he  knew  you,  and  what 
you  are  going  through  at  this  time.  He  fell  in  love  with 
my  mother  at  first  sight  in  Paris,  and  she  with  him.  He 
was  on  leave,  and  she  was  there  with  her  parents  from 
Ireland.  He'd  never  meant  to  marry,  but  he  was  swept 
off  his  feet.  Mother's  people  wouldn't  hear  of  it.  They 
took  her  home  in  a  hurry,  and  tried  to  make  her  marry 
some  one  else.  She  nearly  did  —  because  they  were 
stronger  than  she.  She  wrote  father  a  letter  of  good-bye, 
to  his  post  in  the  southern  desert,  where  he  was  stationed 
then.  He  supposed,  when  he  read  the  letter,  that  she 
was  already  married  when  he  got  it.  But  suddenly  she 
appeared  —  as  unexpectedly  as  I  appeared  to-day.  She'd 
run  away  from  home,  because  she  couldn't  live  without 
him.  Oh,  how  well  I  understand  her!  Think  of  the 


THE  COLONEL  OF  THE  LEGION         111 

joy!  It  was  like  waking  from  a  dreadful  dream  for  both 
of  them.  They  were  going  to  be  married  at  once,  though 
mother  was  half  dead  with  fatigue  and  excitement  after 
her  long,  hurried  journey;  but  on  their  wedding  eve  she 
was  taken  ill,  and  became  delirious.  It  was  typhoid 
fever.  She  had  got  it  somehow  on  the  journey.  She 
had  come  without  stopping  to  rest,  from  Dublin  to  Toug- 
gourt,  where  father  was  stationed.  They  say  it's  wild 
there  even  now.  It  was  far  wilder  then,  more  than  twenty- 
one  years  ago.  He  nursed  mother  himself,  scarcely 
eating  or  sleeping:  not  taking  off  his  clothes  for  weeks. 
One  of  his  aunts  —  my  great-aunt  —  told  me  the  story. 
It  came  to  her  from  a  friend  of  father's.  He  never  spoke 
of  it.  For  three  months  mother  wasn't  out  of  danger. 
Father  was  her  nurse,  her  doctor,  not  her  husband.  But 
at  last  she  was  well  again.  They  had  their  honeymoon 
in  a  tent  in  the  desert.  She  loved  the  desert,  then  —  or 
thought  she  did.  Afterward,  though,  she  changed,  for  I 
was  coming,  and  she  was  ill  again.  By  that  time  they 
were  stationed  still  farther  south.  She  grew  so  homesick 
for  the  north  that  my  father  got  leave.  They  started 
to  travel  by  easy  stages  through  the  desert,  with  a  small 
caravan.  Their  hope  was  to  reach  Algiers,  and  to  get  to 
France  long  before  the  baby  should  come;  but  the  heat  grew 
suddenly  terrible,  and  one  day  they  were  caught  in  a  fear- 
ful sandstorm.  My  mother  was  terrified.  I  was  born  two 
months  before  the  time.  That  same  night  she  died, 
while  the  storm  was  still  raging;  and  before  she  went,  she 
begged  my  father  to  promise,  whatever  happened,  not 
to  leave  her  body  buried  in  the  desert.  He  did  promise. 
And  then  began  his  martyrdom.  The  caravan  could  not 


112  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

march  fast  because  of  me.  A  negro  woman  who'd  come 
as  mother's  maid  took  care  of  me  as  well  as  she  could, 
and  fed  me  on  condensed  milk.  Strange  I  should  have 
lived.  .  .  .  My  father  had  his  men  make  for  my 
mother's  body  a  case  of  many  tins,  which  they  spread 
open  and  soldered  together,  with  lead  from  bullets  they 
melted.  In  the  next  oasis  they  cut  down  a  palm  tree 
and  hollowed  out  the  trunk  for  a  coffin.  They  sealed 
up  the  tin  case  in  it,  and  the  coffin  travelled  on  the  camel 
mother  had  ridden  when  she  was  alive,  in  one  of  those 
beautiful  hooded  bassourahs  you  must  have  seen  in 
pictures.  At  night  the  coffin  rested  in  my  father's  tent, 
and  he  lay  beside  it  as  he  had  lain  beside  my  mother  when 
she  lived,  and  they  were  happy.  Because  she'd  been  a 
Catholic,  and  because  she'd  always  hated  the  dark,  father 
burned  candles  on  the  coffin  always  till  dawn;  and  the 
men  who  loved  him  looked  for  wild  flowers  in  the  desert  to 
lay  upon  it.  He  had  forty  days,  and  forty  nights,  march- 
ing through  the  desert  with  the  dead  body  of  his  love, 
before  they  came  to  the  railway.  Then  he  took  mother 
to  France,  and  left  me  with  his  two  aunts  there.  Now 
do  you  wonder  he  never  loved  me,  or  wanted  to  have  me 
with  him?" 

"No,  perhaps  not,"  said  Max.  Deep  sadness  had 
fallen  upon  him.  He  was  in  the  desert  with  the  man 
beside  whose  agony  his  own  trial  was  as  nothing.  All 
the  world  seemed  to  be  full  of  sorrow  and  pain  sharper 
than  his  own  personal  pain.  And  as  the  girl  asked  her 
question  and  he  answered  it,  their  cab  passed  the  pro- 
cession of  recruits  for  the  Foreign  Legion,  tramping  along 
between  tall  plane  trees  toward  the  town  gate. 


THE  COLONEL  OF  THE  LEGION  113 

Once  again  a  pair  of  tortured  black  eyes  looked  at 
Max,  who  winced  as  the  thick  yellow  dust  from  the  wheels 
enveloped  the  marching  men. 

"Will  you  let  me  tell  my  father  your  story,  as  I  have 
told  you  his?  "  Sanda  asked. 

"Do  as  you  think  best,"  he  said. 

In  another  moment  the  cab  had  rolled  past  a  few 
gardens  and  villas,  a  green  plateau  and  a  moat,  and  passed 
through  a  great  gateway.  Overhead,  carved  in  the  stone, 
were  the  words  "  Porte  d'Oran,"  and  the  date,  1855.  Once, 
when  the  town  was  young,  the  gates  had  been  kept  tightly 
closed,  and  through  the  loopholes  in  the  stout,  stone  wall 
(the  old  part  yellow,  the  newer  part  gray)  guns  had  been 
fired  at  besieging  Arabs,  the  tribe  of  the  Beni  Amer,  who 
had  worshipped  at  the  shrine  of  the  dead  Saint,  Sidi-bel- 
Abbes.  But  all  that  was  past  long  ago.  No  hope  of 
fighting  for  the  Legionnaires,  save  over  the  frontier  in 
Morocco,  or  far  away  in  the  South!  The  shrine  of  Sidi- 
bel- Abbes  stood  neglected  in  the  Arab  graveyard.  Even 
the  meaning  of  the  name,  once  sacred  to  his  followers, 
was  well-nigh  forgotten;  and  all  that  was  Arab  in  Sidi- 
bel-Abbes  had  been  relegated  to  the  Village  N6gre,  strictly 
forbidden  as  Blue  Beard's  Room  of  Secrets,  to  the  Soldiers 
of  the  Legion. 

Inside  the  wall  everything  was  modern  and  French, 
except  for  a  few  trudging  or  labouring  Arabs  in  white, 
or  in  gray  burnouses  of  camel's  hair  made  in  Morocco. 
As  the  daughter  of  the  Legion's  colonel  drove  humbly 
in  her  shabby  cab  to  the  Hotel  Splendide,  she  felt  vaguely 
depressed  and  disappointed  in  the  town  which  she  expected 
to  be  her  home.  She  had  fancied  that  it  would  be  very 


114  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

eastern,  with  mosques  and  bazaars,  and  perhaps  sur- 
rounded with  desert;  but  there  was  no  desert  within  many 
miles;  and  there  was  only  one  minaret  rising  in  the  dis- 
tance, like  a  long  white  finger  to  mark  the  beginning  of  the 
Village  Negre.  Instead  of  bazaars,  there  were  new  French 
shops  and  a  sinister  predominance  of  drinking  places  of 
all  sorts:  a  few  "smart"  cafes,  with  marble-topped  tables 
on  the  pavement,  but  mostly  dull  dens,  appealing  to  the 
poorest  and  most  desperate.  The  town  was  like  a  Mal- 
tese cross  in  shape,  the  arms  of  the  cross  being  wide  streets, 
each  leading  to  a  gate  in  the  fortifications;  Porte  d'Oran, 
Porte  de  Tlemcen,  Porte  de  Mascarra,  and  Porte  de  Daya; 
and  the  one  great  charm  of  the  place  seemed  to  be  in  its 
trees;  giant  planes  which  made  arbours  across  the  streets, 
giving  a  look  of  dreaming  peace,  despite  the  rattle  of 
wheels  on  roughly  set  paving-stones. 

There  were  middle-aged  buildings,  low  and  small  and 
dun-coloured,  exactly  like  those  of  every  other  French- 
Algerian  settlement,  but  big  new  blocks  of  glittering  white 
gave  an  air  of  almost  ostentatious  prosperity  to  the  place. 
There  was  even  an  attempt  at  gayety  in  the  ornamenta- 
tion, yet  there  appeared  to  be  nothing  attractive  to  tour- 
ists, save  the  Foreign  Legion,  which  gave  mystery  and 
romance  to  all  that  would  otherwise  have  been  banal. 
Noise  was  everywhere,  loud,  shrill,  insistent;  rumbling, 
shrieking,  rattling,  roaring.  Huge  wagons,  loaded  with 
purple-stained  cases  of  Algerian  wine,  bumping  over  the 
stones;  strings  of  bells  wound  round  the  great  horns 
of  horses'  collars  jingling  like  sleigh-bells  in  winter;  whips 
in  the  hands  of  fierce-eyed  carters  cracking  round 
the  heads  of  large,  sad  mules;  hooters  of  automobiles 


THE  COLONEL  OF  THE  LEGION         115 

and  immense  motor  diligences  blaring;  men  shouting  at 
animals;  animals  barking  or  braying,  snorting  or  cluck- 
ing at  men;  unseen  soldiers  marching  to  music;  a  town 
clock  sweetly  chiming  the  hour,  and,  above  all,  rising 
like  spray  from  the  ocean  of  din,  high  voices  of  Arabs 
chaffering,  disputing,  arguing.  This  was  the  "Arabian 
Night's  Paradise"  that  Sanda  had  dreamed  of! 

Presently  the  cab  passed  a  great  town  clock  with  four 
faces  (one  for  each  of  the  four  diverging  streets)  and  drew 
up  before  a  flat-faced  building  with  the  name  "Hotel 
Splendide"  stretching  across  its  dim,  yellow  front. 
Inside  a  big,  open  doorway,  stairs  went  steeply  up,  past 
piles  of  commercial  travellers'  show  trunks,  and  an 
Arab  bootblack  who  clamoured  for  custom.  At  the  top 
Max  Doran  and  his  charge  came  into  a  hall,  whence  a 
bare-looking  restaurant  and  several  other  rooms  opened 
out.  On  a  gigantic  hatrack  like  a  withered  tree  hung 
coats  and  hats  in  dark  bunches,  brightened  with  a  few 
military  coats  and  gold-braided  caps.  As  Max  and  Sanda 
appeared,  an  officer  —  youngish,  dark,  sharp-featured, 
with  a  small  waxed  moustache  and  near-sighted  black 
eyes  —  turned  hastily  away  from  a  window,  and  with 
a  stride  added  his  cap  and  cloak  to  the  hatrack's  bur- 
den. He  had  an  almost  childishly  guilty  air  of  not  wish- 
ing to  be  caught  at  something.  And  what  that  something 
was,  Max  Doran  guessed  with  a  queer  constriction  of  the 
throat  as  he  looked  through  the  window.  This  opened 
into  a  dim  room,  which  was  labelled  "Bureau,"  and  framed 
the  head  and  bust  of  a  young  woman. 

Such  light  as  there  was  in  the  hall  fell  full  upon  her  short, 
white  face,  into  her  slanting  yellow  eyes  and  on  to  the 


116  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

elaborately  dressed  red  hair.  She  had  been  smiling  at 
the  officer,  but  on  the  interruption  of  the  strangers'  en- 
trance she  frowned  with  annoyance.  It  was  the  frank, 
animal  annoyance  of  a  beautiful  young  lynx,  teased  by 
having  a  piece  of  meat  snatched  away.  The  eyes  were 
clear  in  colour  as  a  dark  topaz,  and  full  of  topaz  light. 
This  was  remarkable;  but  their  real  strangeness  lay  in 
expression.  They  seemed  not  unintelligent,  but  devoid 
of  all  human  experience.  They  gazed  at  the  newcomers 
from  the  little  window  of  the  bureau,  as  an  animal  gazes 
from  the  bars  of  its  cage,  looking  at  the  eyes  which  regard 
it,  not  into  them;  near  yet  remote;  a  creature  of  another 
species. 

The  girl  appeared  to  be  well-shaped  enough,  though 
her  strong  white  throat  was  short,  and  the  hands  which 
lay  on  the  wide  window  ledge  were  as  small  as  a  child's. 
Yet  like  a  shadow  thrown  on  the  wall  behind  her  was  a 
lurking  impression  of  deformity  of  body  and  mind,  a 
spirit  cast  out  of  her,  to  point  at  something  veiled.  If 
there  could  have  lingered  in  the  mind  of  Max  a  grain  of 
doubt  concerning  Rose  Doran's  confession,  it  was  burnt 
up  in  a  moment;  for  the  girl  was  an  Aubrey  Beardsley 
caricature  of  Rose.  No  need  to  ask  if  this  were  Mad- 
emoiselle Delatour.  He  knew.  And  this  lieutenant  in 
the  uniform  of  the  Spahis  was  the  "namesake"  of  whom 
the  men  had  talked  in  the  train. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   VOICE   OF  THE   LEGION 

IT  WAS  all  far  worse  even  than  Max  had  expected;  and 
the  next  few  days  were  a  nightmare.  The  resemblance 
between  the  girl  and  her  mother  —  once  his  mother,  whom 
he  had  as  a  boy  adored  —  made  the  effect  more  gruesome. 

Josephine  Delatour  was  coarse  minded  and  sly,  in- 
ordinately vain,  caring  for  nothing  in  life  except  the 
admiration  of  such  men  as  she  had  met  and  mistaken  for 
gentlemen.  Her  way  of  receiving  the  news  of  her  change 
of  fortune  disgusted  Max,  sickened  him  so  utterly  that 
he  could  not  bear  to  think  of  her  reigning  in  Jack  Doran's 
house.  She  was  torn  between  pleasure  in  the  prospect  of 
being  rich,  and  suspicious  that  there  was  a  plot  to  kidnap 
her,  like  the  heroine  of  a  sensational  novel.  She  did  not 
want  to  go  to  America.  She  wanted  to  stay  in  Sidi- 
bel-Abbes  and  triumph  over  all  the  women  who  had 
snubbed  her.  She  boasted  of  her  admirers,  and  hinted  that 
even  without  money  she  could  marry  any  one  of  a  dozen 
young  officers.  But  the  one  for  whom  she  seemed  really 
to  care  —  if  it  were  in  her  to  care  for  any  one  except  her- 
self —  was  the  namesake  of  whom  Max  had  heard  laugh- 
ing hints. 

At  the  time  it  had  not  occurred  to  him  that  the  name 
of  the  alleged  "cousin"  must  be  Delatour;  but  so  it  was. 

117 


118  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

though  the  dark  young  man  with  the  waxed  moustache 
spelled  his  name  differently,  in  the  more  aristocratic 
way,  with  three  syllables.  When  Josephine  boasted  that , 
though  he  was  from  a  great  family,  with  a  castle  on 
the  River  Loire,  he  called  himself  her  cousin,  Max 
realized  that  the  Lieutenant  of  Spahis  must  be  a  son  or 
nephew  of  the  de  la  Tour  from  whom  Rose  and  Jack  had 
taken  the  chateau.  So  far,  however,  was  Max  Doran 
from  being  elated  by  this  tie  of  blood,  that  he  mentally 
dubbed  his  relative  a  cad.  It  was  all  he  could  do  to 
persuade  Josephine  not  to  tell  Raoul  de  la  Tour  that  she 
had  come  into  money,  and  a  name  as  aristocratic  as  his 
own  —  in  fact,  that  she  was  qualifying  as  a  heroine  of 
romance.  Only  by  appealing  to  the  crude  sense  of  drama 
the  girl  had  in  her  could  she  be  prevented  from  stupidly 
throwing  out  bait  to  fortune-hunters.  But  having  wired 
again  to  Edwin  Reeves,  and  hearing  that  Mrs.  Reeves, 
already  in  Paris,  had  started  for  Algiers,  a  plan  occurred 
to  Max.  He  advised  Josephine,  if  she  thought  that  de 
la  Tour  cared  for  her,  to  tell  him  that  she  was  giving 
up  work  in  the  Hotel  Splendide;  also  that  she  was  leaving 
Sidi-bel-Abbes  forever;  and  then  see  what  he  would  say. 
What  he  did  say  was  such  a  blow  to  the  girl's  vanity 
that,  when  she  was  sure  he  had  no  intention  of  marrying 
a  poor  secretary,  she  flung  the  dazzling  truth  at  his  face. 
Repentant,  he  tried  to  turn  his  late  insults  into  honest 
lovemaking;  but  the  temper  of  the  lynx  was  roused. 
Never  having  deeply  loved  the  man,  she  took  pleasure  in 
using  her  claws  on  him.  In  taunting  him  with  what  he 
might  have  had,  however,  she  let  the  identity  of  the 
newsbringer  leak  out. 


THE  VOICE  OF  THE  LEGION  119 

De  la  Tour  then  warned  her  passionately  against  le 
jeune  aventurier  Americain,  and  almost  frightened  the 
girl  into  disbelieving  the  whole  story.  But  proofs  were 
forthcoming,  and  with  the  landlord's  wife,  who  enjoyed 
sharing  a  borrowed  halo,  Josephine  Delatour  —  or  Jo- 
sephine Doran  —  went  to  Algiers  to  await  Mrs.  Reeves's 
arrival.  Meanwhile,  with  the  money  she  procured  from 
Max,  the  girl  planned  to  buy  herself  a  trousseau,  and 
eventually  departed*  rejoicing  in  her  lover's  discom- 
fiture. Whether  or  no  this  attitude  were  safe  with  such  a 
man  remained  to  be  seen.  As  for  Max  —  the  messenger 
who  had  brought  the  tidings  —  since  he  showed  no  desire 
to  flirt  with  her,  Josephine  saw  no  reason  to  be  interested 
in  him.  Besides,  she  could  hardly  believe  that  he  was 
not  somehow  to  blame  for  having  kept  what  ought  to  have 
been  hers  for  his  own  all  these  years.  She  had  not  loved 
her  supposed  father  and  mother,  who  had  interfered 
with  her  pleasure,  disapproving  of  what  they  called  her 
extravagance  and  frivolity.  .  .  .  There  was  no  grief 
to  the  girl  in  learning  that  the  Delatoura*  were  not  her 
parents. 

Nor  did  it  seem  to  Josephine  that  gratitude  was  due 
Max  for  resigning  in  her  favour.  She  was  greedily  ready 
to  grab  everything,  without  thanks,  just  as  her  lynx- 
prototype  would  snatch  a  piece  of  meat,  if  it  could  get  it, 
from  another  lynx.  She  grudged  the  years  of  luxury  and 
pleasure  which  she  ought  to  have  had;  and  could  she 
have  realized  that  she  had  made  of  Lieutenant  de  la  Tour 
an  enemy  for  Max  Doran,  she  would  have  been  glad.  It 
was  right  that  two  men  should  quarrel  over  a  woman. 

While  he  was  arranging  Josephine's  affairs,  Max  saw 


120  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

nothing  of  Sanda  and  Colonel  DeLisle.  He  had  thought 
it  best  to  take  up  his  quarters  at  another  hotel,  and  his 
only  communication  with  them  was  by  letter.  He  wrote 
Sanda  that  when  his  business  was  finished  he  would 
make  up  his  mind  what  to  do;  but  in  any  case  he  hoped 
that  he  might  be  allowed  to  bid  her  and  Colonel  DeLisle 
farewell.  In  answer,  came  an  invitation  from  the  Colonel 
to  see  the  Salle  d'Honneur  of  the  Legion,  the  famous 
gallery  where  records  of  its  heroes  were  kept.  "That  is," 
(Sanda  said,  writing  for  her  father)  "if  you  are  interested 
in  the  Legion. " 

"If  he  were  interested  in  the  Legion!"  Already  he  was 
obsessed  by  thoughts  of  it.  Sidi-bel- Abbes,  which  at  first 
had  struck  him  as  being  a  dull  provincial  town,  now  seemed 
the  only  place  where  he  could  have  lived  through  his  dark 
hours.  Elsewhere  he  would  have  felt  surrounded  by  a 
gay  and  happy  world  in  which  a  man  with  his  back  to  the 
wall  had  no  place.  Here  at  Sidi-bel-Abbes  was  the  home 
of  men  with  their  backs  to  the  wall.  The  very  town  itself 
had  been  created  by  such  men,  and  for  them.  For  genera- 
tions desperate  men,  sad  men,  starving  men,  of  all  coun- 
tries —  men  who  had  lost  everything  but  life  and  strength 
—  had  been  turning  their  faces  toward  Sidi-bel-Abbes, 
their  sole  luggage  the  secret  sorrow  which,  once  the  Legion 
had  taken  them,  was  no  one's  business  but  their  own. 

Max  Doran  could  not  go  into  the  street  without  meet- 
ing at  least  a  dozen  men  in  the  Legion's  uniform,  who 
seemed  akin  to  him  because  of  the  look  in  their  eyes;  the 
look  of  those  cut  off  from  what  had  once  meant  life  and 
love.  What  they  were  enduring  was  unknown  to  him, 
but  he  was  somehow  at  home  among  them.  And  the 


THE  VOICE  OF  THE  LEGION  121 

day  Josephine  went  away,  before  he  had  yet  made  up  his 
rnind  to  the  next  step,  for  the  first  time  he  heard  the  music 
of  the  Legion's  band. 

It  was  in  the  afternoon,  and  he  had  strolled  outside 
the  Porte  de  Tlemcen  into  the  public  gardens  for  the  music, 
only  because  he  had  an  hour  to  pass  before  his  appoint- 
ment in  the  Salle  d'Honneur.  In  winter  the  band  played 
in  the  Place  Carnot,  but  on  this  soft  day  of  early  spring 
the  concert  was  announced  for  the  gardens  beloved  by  the 
people  of  Sidi-bel- Abbes.  They  were  beautiful,  but  to 
Max  it  seemed  the  beauty  of  sadness;  and  even  there, 
outside  the  wall  which  dead  Legionnaires  had  built, 
everything  spoke  of  the  Legion.  Men  of  the  Legion  had 
planted  many  of  the  tall  trees  of  the  cloistral  avenue, 
whose  columnar  trunks  were  darkly  draped  with  ivy. 
Men  of  tJbe  Legion  swept  dead  leaves  from  the  paths, 
as  they  swept  away  old  memories.  Men  of  the  Legion 
walked  in  the  gray  shadow  of  the  planes,  as  they  walked 
in  the  shadows  of  life.  Men  of  the  Legion  rested  on  the 
rough  wooden  benches,  staring  absently  at  mourning 
plumes  of  cypresses,  or  white  waterfalls  that  fleeted  by 
like  lost  opportunities.  Yes,  despite  the  flowers  in  the 
myrtle  borders  it  was  a  place  of  sadness,  and  of  a  mournful 
silence  until  the  musicians  brought  then-  instruments  into 
the  curious  band-stand  formed  of  growing  trees.  Then  it 
seemed  to  Max  that  he  heard  the  Legion  speak  in  a  great 
and  wonderful  voice. 

As  by  studying  a  hive  one  feels  the  mysterious  govern- 
ing spirit,  so  he  felt  the  spirit  of  the  Legion  in  its  music, 
its  restlessness,  its  longings,  its  passions,  and  its  ambitions, 
uttered  and  cried  to  heaven  in  prayers  and  curses.  As 


122  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

individuals  the  men  were  dumb,  guarding  their  secrets, 
striving  to  forget;  and  it  was  as  if  this  smothered  fire, 
seeking  outlet,  had  sprung  from  heart  to  heart,  kindling 
and  massing  all  together  in  a  vast,  white-hot  furnace. 
The  music  opened  the  doors  of  this  furnace,  and  the 
flames  roared  upward  to  the  sky.  In  the  dazzling  light 
of  that  strange  fire,  secrets  could  be  read,  if  the  eyes  that 
saw  were  not  blinded.  Bitterness  and  joy  were  there  to 
see,  and  the  blending  of  all  passions  through  which  men 
ruin  their  lives,  and  need  to  remake  their  souls.  Yes, 
that  was  the  Legion's  call.  Men  came  to  it,  in  the  hope 
of  remaking  their  souls.  With  his  own  drowned  in  the 
music  of  pain  and  regeneration,  Max  went  to  the  Salle 
d'Honneur  to  meet  Colonel  DeLisle. 

He  knew  where  to  find  it,  next  to  the  barracks;  a  small, 
low  building  of  the  same  dull  yellow,  set  back  in  a  little 
garden  with  a  few  palms  and  flowerbeds.  Inside  the 
gate  was  a  red,  blue,  and  white  sentry  box.  But  Max 
entered  unchallenged,  because  at  the  door  of  the  house 
stood  the  colonel,  who  came  down  a  step  to  meet  him. 
"Monsieur  Doran!"  he  exclaimed  cordially,  holding  out 
his  hand. 

"Will  you  still  offer  me  your  hand,  sir,"  Max  asked 
wistfully,  though  he  smiled,  "even  if  I've  no  name  any 
more,  and  no  country  that  I  can  claim?  Mademoiselle 
DeLisle  has  told  you? " 

"  She  has  told  me,"  echoed  the  elder  man,  shaking 
the  younger's  hand  with  extra  warmth.  "I  congratulate 
you  on  the  chance  of  making  a  name  for  yourself.  I 
think  from  what  I  hear,  and  can  judge,  that  you  will  do  so, 
in  whatever  path  you  choose.  Have  you  chosen  yet?" 


THE  VOICE  OF  THE  LEGION  123 

"Not  yet,"  Max  confessed.  "Neither  a  name  nor  the 
way  to  make  it.  Nor  the  country  most  likely  to  make 
it  in." 

"As  for  that"—  and  Colonel  DeLisle  smiled  — "we 
of  the  Legion  are  more  used  to  men  without  names  and 
without  countries  than  to  those  who  have  them.  Not 
that  your  case  is  allied  to  theirs.  Shall  we  go  in?  I  want 
to  thank  you,  as  I've  not  been  able  to  do  yet,  for  your 
chivalrous  behaviour  to  my  daughter.  She  has  told  me 
all  about  that,  too  —  all.  And  I  had  a  feeling  that  this 
room,  in  which  our  Legion  commemorates  honourable 
deeds,  would  be  a  place  where  you  and  I  might  talk." 

As  he  spoke  he  led  Max  into  a  short  corridor,  at  the  end 
of  which  hung  a  large  frame  containing  portraits  and  many 
names  of  men  and  battles  with  the  crest  of  la  Legion 
Etrangere  at  the  top.  Pushing  open  a  door  at  the  right, 
DeLisle  made  way  for  his  guest.  "Here  are  all  the  relics 
that  are  to  us  men  of  the  First  Regiment  most  sacred," 
he  said.  And  as  he  passed  in,  he  saluted  a  flag  preciously 
guarded  in  a  long  glass  case :  the  flag  of  the  regiment  dec- 
orated with  the  Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honour  on  an  his- 
toric occasion  of  great  bravery.  An  answering  thrill  shot 
through  Max's  veins,  for  in  them  ran  soldier  blood.  In- 
voluntarily he,  too,  saluted  the  flag  and  its  cross.  Colonel 
DeLisle  gave  him  a  quick  look,  but  made  no  comment. 

Two  out  of  the  four  walls  were  covered  with  portraits 
of  men  in  uniforms  ancient  and  modern;  paintings,  en- 
gravings, photographs;  and  the  decorations  were  strange 
weapons,  and  torn,  faded  banners  which  had  helped  the 
Legion  to  make  history.  There  were  drums  and  weird 
idols,  too,  and  monstrous  masks  and  great  fans  from 


124  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

Tonkin  and  Madagascar,  and  relics  of  fighting  in  Mexico. 
On  the  long  table  lay  albums  of  photographs,  and  upon 
either  side  were  ranged  chairs  as  if  for  officers  to  sit  in 
council. 

"Whenever  we  wish  to  do  a  guest  honour,  we  bring 
him  here,"  said  the  colonel.  "We  are  not  rich,  and  have 
nothing  better  to  offer;  except,  perhaps,  our  music." 

"I  have  already  heard  the  music,"  answered  Max.  "I 
shall  never  forget  it.  And  I  shall  never  forget  this 
room." 

"Such  music  wakes  the  hearts  of  men,  and  helps  in- 
spire them  to  heroic  acts  like  these."  Colonel  DeLisle 
waved  his  hand  toward  some  of  the  pictures  which  showed 
soldiers  fighting  the  Legion's  most  historic  battles.  "I 
am  rather  proud  of  our  music  and  our  men.  This  room, 
too,  and  the  things  in  it  —  most  of  all  the  flag.  My 
daughter  has  spent  hours  in  the  Salle  d'Honneur  looking 
over  our  records.  Presently  she  will  join  us.  But  I 
wanted  to  thank  you  before  she  came.  Corisande  is 
a  child,  knowing  little  of  the  world  and  its  ways.  Some 
men  in  your  place  would  have  misunderstood  her  —  in  the 
unusual  circumstances.  But  you  did  not.  You  proved 
yourself  a  friend  in  need  for  my  little  girl,  on  her  strange 
journey  to  me.  I  wish  in  return  there  might  be  some 
way  in  which  I  could  show  myself  a  friend  to  you.  Can 
you  think  of  any  such  way?" 

The  voice  was  earnest  and  very  kind.  A  great  reaction 
from  his  first  prejudice  against  the  speaker  swept  over 
Max.  Beneath  this  one  voice  which  questioned  him  and 
waited  for  an  answer,  he  heard  as  a  deep,  thrilling  under- 
tone the  voice  of  the  Legion  which  had  called  to  him 


THE  VOICE  OF  THE  LEGION  125 

through  the  music  to  come  and  share  its  bath  of  fire.     A 
sudden  purpose  awoke  in  Max  Doran,  and  he  knew  then 
that  it  had  been  in  the  background  of  his  mind  for  days, 
waiting  for  some  word  to  wake  it.     Now  the  word  had 
come.     All  his  blood  seemed  to  rush  from  heart  to  head, 
and  he  grew  giddy :  yet  he  spoke  steadily  enough. 
"I  have  thought  of  a  way,  Colonel  DeLisle!" 
"I  am  glad.     You  have  only  to  tell  me." 
"Accept  me  as  one  of  youi*  men.     Let  me  join  the 
Legion." 

"Mon  Dieu!"  The  Legion's  colonel  was  taken  com- 
pletely by  surprise.  Max  had  thought  he  might  perhaps 
have  expected  the  request,  but  evidently  it  was  not  so. 
The  dapper  little  figure  straightened  itself.  And  from 
his  place  beside  his  adored  flag,  Colonel  DeLisle  gazed 
across  to  the  other  side  where,  close  also  to  the  flag,  stood 
the  young  man  he  had  wished  to  serve.  Max  met  his 
eyes,  flushed  and  eager  and,  it  seemed,  pathetically  young. 
There  was  dead  silence  for  an  instant.  Then  DeLisle 
spoke  in  a  changed  tone:  "Do  you  mean  this?  Have 
you  thought  of  what  you  are  saying?" 

"  I  do  mean  it,"  Max  replied.  "  I  believe  I  have  thought 
of  it  ever  since  I  saw  those  men  of  all  countries  getting  out 
of  the  train  to  join  the  Legion.  I  felt  the  call  they  had  felt. 
But  it  is  stronger  to-day.  I  know  now  what  I  want.  In 
the  Salle  D'Honneur  of  the  Legion  I  decide  on  my 
career." 

"Decide!"  the  other  repeated.  "No,  not  that,  yet! 
You  have  got  this  idea  into  your  head  because  you  are 
romantic.  You  think  you  are  ruined  and  that  the  future 
doesn't  matter.  You  will  find  it  does.  This  is  no  place 


126  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

for  poetry  and  romance  —  my  God,  no!  It's  a  fiery 
furnace.  In  barracks  we  should  burn  the  romance  out  of 
you  in  twenty-four  hours." 

"If  I've  got  more  in  me  than  any  man  who  loves  ad- 
venture ought  to  have,  then  I  want  it  burned  out,"  said 
Max. 

"Adventures  will  cost  you  less  elsewhere,"  almost 
sneered  DeLisle. 

"I  don't  ask  to  get  them  cheap,"  Max  still  insisted. 
"Though  I've  got  nothing  to  pay  with,  except  myself, 
my  blood,  and  flesh,  and  muscles." 

"That's  good  com,"  exclaimed  the  elder,  warming  again. 
"Yet  we  can't  take  it.  You  may  think  you  know  what 
you  mean.  But  you  don't  know  what  the  Legion  means. 
I  do.  I've  had  nearly  twenty  years  of  it." 

"You  love  it?" 

"Yes,  it  is  my  life.  But  —  I  have  to  remind  you,  I 
entered  it  as  an  officer.  There  is  all  the  difference." 

"At  least  I  should  be  a  soldier.  I  know  what  a  soldier's 
hardships  are." 

"Ah,  not  in  the  Legion! " 

"It  can't  kill  me." 

"It  might." 

"Let  it,  then.     I'll  die  learning  to  be  a  man." 

DeLisle  looked  at  his  companion  intently.  "I  think," 
he  said,  "you  are  a  man." 

"No,  sir,  I'm  not,"  Max  contradicted  him  abruptly. 
"I  used  to  hope  I  might  pass  muster  as  men  go.  But 
these  last  days  I've  been  finding  myself  out.  I've  been 
down  in  hell,  and  I  shouldn't  have  got  there  if  I  were  a 
man.  I'm  a  self-indulgent,  pining,  and  whining  boy,  think- 


THE  VOICE  OF  THE  LEGION  127 

ing  of  nothing  but  myself,  and  not  knowing  whether  I've 
done  right  or  wrong.  If  the  Legion  can't  teach  me  what's 
white  and  what's  black,  nothing  can." 

The  colonel  of  the  Legion  laughed  a  queer,  short  laugh. 
"That  is  true,"  he  said.  "I  take  back  those  words  of 
mine  about  poetry  and  romance.  You've  got  the  right 
point  of  view,  after  all.  And  you  are  the  kind  of  man  the 
Legion  wants,  the  born  soldier,  lover  of  adventure  for 
adventure's  sake.  You  would  come  to  us  not  because  you 
have  anything  to  hide,  or  because  you  prefer  barracks  in 
France  to  prison  at  home,  or  because  some  woman  has 
thrown  you  over,"  (just  there  his  keen  eyes  saw  the  young 
man  wince,  and  he  hurried  on  without  a  pause)  "but 
because  we've  made  some  history,  we  of  the  Legion,  and 
you  would  like  a  chance  to  make  some  for  yourself,  under 
this"  —  and  he  pointed  to  the  flag  whose  folds  hung 
between  them  — "  Valeur  et  Discipline!  That's  the 
Legion's  motto,  for  the  Legion  itself  must  be  Dieu  et 
Patrie  for  most  of  its  sons.  I've  done  my  duty  as  a  friend 
in  warning  you  to  go  where  life  is  easier.  As  colonel  of 
the  First  Regiment,  I  welcome  you,  if  you  sincerely  wish 
to  come  into  the  Legion.  Only " 

"Only  what,  sir?" 

"My  daughter!  She  wanted  me  to  help  you.  She'll 
think  I've  hindered,  instead." 

"No,  Colonel.     She  hoped  I'd  join  the  Legion." 

DeLisle  looked  surprised.  "What  reason  have  you  for 
supposing  that?  " 

"  Interpreting  a  thing  she  said,  or,  rather,  a  thing  she 
wanted  to  say,  but  was  afraid  to  say  for  fear  I  might  blame 
her  some  day  in  the  future." 


128  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

"She,  knowing  nothing  of  the  Legion,  recommended  you 
to  join?  That  is  strange." 

"She  knew  a  little  of  me  and  my  circumstances.  I'd 
been  a  soldier,  and  there  seemed  only  one  convenient  way 
for  a  man  without  a  name  or  country  to  start  and  become 
a  soldier  again.  Miss  DeLisle  saw  that." 

"You're  talking  of  me?"  inquired  Sanda's  voice  at  the 
half-open  door.  Both  men  sprang  to  open  it  for  her.  As 
she  came  into  the  Salle  d'Honneur,  she  seemed  to  bring 
with  her  into  this  room,  sacred  to  dead  heroes  of  all  lands, 
the  sweetness  of  spring  flowers  to  lay  on  distant  graves. 
And  as  she  stepped  over  the  threshold,  like  a  young  soldier 
she  saluted  the  flag. 

"I  have  just  said  to  Colonel  DeLisle  that  you  would 
approve  of  my  joining  the  Legion,"  Max  explained.  "  Have 
I  told  him  the  truth?" 

The  girl  looked  anxiously  from  one  man  to  the  other. 
She  was  rather  pale  and  subdued,  as  if  life  pressed  hardly 
even  upon  her.  "  You  guessed  what  I  wouldn't  let  myself 
say  in  the  train  the  other  day!"  she  exclaimed.  "But 
—  you  haven't  joined,  have  you?" 

"Not  yet,  or  I  shouldn't  be  here.  The  Salle  d'Honneur 
is  for  common  soldiers  only  when  they're  dead,  I  pre- 
sume." 

"But  you  could  become  an  officer  some  day,  couldn't 
he,  father?" 

"Yes,"  replied  Colonel  DeLisle.  "Every  soldier  of 
the  Legion  has  his  chance.  And  our  friend  is  French,  I 
think,  from  what  you've  told  me  of  his  confidences  to  you. 
That  gives  an  extra  chance  to  rise.  France  —  rightly  or 
wrongly,  but  like  all  mothers  —  favours  her  own  sons. 


THE  VOICE  OF  THE  LEGION  129 

Besides,  he  has  been  a  soldier,  which  puts  him  at  once 
ahead  of  the  others." 

"  I  shouldn't  trade  on  that !  I'd  rather  begin  on  a  level 
with  other  men,  not  ahead  of  them,"  Max  said  hastily. 
"My  object  would  be  not  to  teach,  but  to  learn  —  to  cure 
myself  of  my  faults " 

The  colonel  drew  a  deep  breath,  like  a  sigh.  "We  do 
cure  men  sometimes,  men  far  more  desperate,  men  with 
souls  far  more  sick  than  yours.  There's  that  to  be  said 
for  us." 

"His  soul  isn't  sick  at  all!"  Sanda  cried  out,  in  defence 
of  her  friend. 

"Perhaps  he  thinks  it  is."  Colonel  DeLisle  looked  at 
Max  as  he  had  looked  after  those  chance  words  of  his 
about  a  woman. 

"Do  you  think  that,  Mr.  Doran?"  the  girl  questioned 
incredulously.  "I  shall  be  disappointed  if  you  do." 

"Don't  be  disappointed.  I  do  not  think  my  soul  is 
sick.  I  want  to  see  how  strong  it  can  be,  and  my  body,  too. 
But  you  mustn't  call  me  'Mr.  Doran'  now,  please.  It 
isn't  my  name  any  more.  Colonel  DeLisle,  may  I  ask 
your  daughter  to  choose  a  name  for  a  new  soldier  of  the 
Legion?  It  will  be  the  last  favour,  for  I  understand 
perfectly  that  after  I've  joined  the  regiment,  as  a  private 
soldier,  you  can  be  my  friends  only  at  heart.  Socially, 
all  intercourse  must  end." 

"Oh,  no,  it  wouldn't  be  so,"  Sanda  cried  out  impul- 
sively, though  the  old  officer  was  silent.  "It  wouldn't, 
if  I  were  not  going  away." 

"You  are  going  away?"  Max  was  conscious  of  a  faint 
chill.  He  would  have  found  some  comfort  in  the  thought 


130  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

that  his  brave  little  travelling  companion  was  near,  even 
though  he  seldom  saw  and  never  spoke  to  her. 

"Not  home  to  the  aunts!  I  told  you  I'd  never  go  back 
to  live  with  them,  and  my  father  wouldn't  send  me.  But 

there's  to  be  a  long  march Oh,  have  I  said  what  I 

oughtn't?  Why?  Since  he  must  know  if  he  joins? 
Anyhow,  I  can't  stay  here  many  days  longer  —  I  mean, 
for  the  present.  I'm  to  be  sent  to  a  wonderful  place.  It 
will  be  a  great  romance." 

"  Sanda,  it  is  irrelevant  to  talk  of  that  now,"  Colonel 
DeLisle  reminded  his  daughter. 

"Forgive  me!  I  forgot,  father.  May  I  —  name  the 
new  soldier,  and  wish  him  joy?" 

DeLisle  laughed  rather  bitterly.  "  'Joy'  isn't  precisely 
the  word.  If  he  hoped  for  it,  he  would  soon  be  disil- 
lusioned. You  may  give  him  a  name,  if  he  wishes  it. 
But  let  me  also  give  him  a  few  words  of  advice.  Monsieur 
Doran " 

"St.  George!"  broke  in  Sanda.  "That  is  to  be  his 
name.  I  christen  him,  close  to  the  flag.  Soldier,  saint, 
slayer  of  dragons."  She  did  not  add  "my  patron  saint," 
but  Max  remembered,  and  was  grateful. 

"Soldier  Saint  George,  then,"  DeLisle  began  again, 
smiling,  "  this  is  my  advice  as  your  friend  and  well-wisher : 
again,  I  say,  why  should  you  not  take  advantages  you  have 
fairly  earned?  My  men  are  wonderful  soldiers.  I  sup- 
pose in  the  world  there  can  be  none  braver,  few  so  brave ; 
for  they  nearly  all  come  to  heal  or  hide  some  secret  wound 
that  makes  them  desperate  or  careless  of  life.  They  are 
glorious  soldiers,  these  foreigners  of  ours !  But  at  the  be- 
ginning you  will  see  them  at  their  worst  in  the  dulness 


THE  VOICE  OF  THE  LEGION  131 

of  barrack  life.  There  are  all  sorts  and  conditions,  from 
the  lowest  to  the  highest.  You  may  happen  to  be  among 
some  of  the  lowest.  Why  not  start  where  you  are  entitled 
to  start?  When,  in  being  recruited,  you  are  asked  to 
state  your  profession,  you're  at  liberty  to  say  what  you 
choose.  No  statement  as  to  name,  age,  country,  or  oc- 
cupation is  disputed  in  the  Legion.  But  once  more,  let 
me  advise  you,  if  you  write  yourself  down  "Soldier,"  things 
can  be  made  comparatively  easy  for  you." 

"I  thank  you,  sir,  and  I  will  take  your  advice  in  every- 
thing else.  But  I  don't  want  things  made  easy." 

"You  may  regret  your  obstinacy." 

"Oh,  father,"  pleaded  Sanda,  "wouldn't  you  be  the 
very  one  to  do  the  same  thing?  " 

"In  his  place,"  said  Colonel  DeLisle,  shrugging  his 
shoulders,  "I  suppose  I  should  do  what  he  does.  What 
/  might  do,  isn't  the  question,  however.  But  I've  said 
enough.  .  .  .  Now  I  have  to  get  back  to  barracks. 
For  you,  Sanda,  this  must  be  'good-bye,'  I  fear,  to  the 
friend  of  your  journey." 

"My  friend  for  always,"  the  girl  amended,  holding  out 
her  hand  to  Max.  "And  I'd  rather  say  'Au  revoir'  than 
'Good-bye';  we  shall  meet  again  —  away  in  the  desert, 
perhaps." 

She  caught  her  father's  warning  eye  and  stopped. 
"  Good-bye,  then  —  Soldier  of  the  Legion." 

"If  he  doesn't  change  his  mind,"  muttered  DeLisle. 
" There's  still  time." 

Max  looked  from  the  girl  to  the  flag  in  its  glass  case. 

"I  shall  not  change  my  mind,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  XI 

FOUR   EYES 

BEYOND  the  barracks  of  the  Legion,  going  toward  the 
Porte  de  Tlemcen,  and  opposite  the  drill-ground  and 
cavalry  barracks  of  the  Spahis,  there  is  a  sign :  Bureau  de 
Recrutement. 

Early  in  the  morning  after  taking  his  resolution,  Max 
walked  down  the  narrow,  lane-like  way  which  led  off  from 
the  Rue  de  Tlemcen  and  the  long  front  wall  of  the  Legion's 
barracks,  and  found  the  door  indicated  by  the  sign. 

In  a  bare  office  room,  furnished  with  a  table  and  a  few 
benches,  sat  a  corporal,  busily  writing.  He  looked  up, 
surprised  to  see  such  a  visitor  as  Max,  and  was  at  some 
trouble  to  hide  his  amazement  on  hearing  that  this  well- 
dressed  young  man,  evidently  a  gentleman,  wished  to 
enlist  in  the  Legion.  Opening  off  the  outer  room,  with 
its  whitewashed  walls  and  display  of  posters  tempting  to 
recruits,  was  another  office,  the  Bureau  du  Commandant 
de  Recrutement,  and  there  Max  was  received  by  a  lieuten- 
ant, older  than  most  of  the  men  of  that  rank  in  the  English 
or  American  armies.  Something  in  his  manner  made 
Max  wonder  if  the  officer  had  been  told  of  him  and  his 
intention  by  Colonel  DeLisle.  At  first  he  put  only  the 
perfunctory  questions  which  a  man  entering  the  wide- 
open  gate  of  the  Legion  may  answer  as  he  chooses.  But 

132 


FOUR  EYES  133 

when  in  its  turn  came  an  inquiry  as  to  the  recruit's  pro- 
fession, the  officer  looked  at  Max  sharply  yet  with  sym- 
pathy. 

"No  profession,"  was  the  answer;  a  true  one,  for  Max's 
resignation  had  already  taken  effect. 

"At  present,  but  —  in  the  past?"  the  lieutenant  en- 
couraged him  kindly.  "If  you  have  military  experience, 
you  can  rise  quickly  in  the  Legion." 

For  good  or  ill,  Max  stuck  to  yesterday's  resolve, 
knowing  that  he  might  be  weak  enough  to  regret  it,  and 
anxious  therefore  to  make  it  irrevocable.  "I  have  done 
some  military  service,"  he  explained,  "enough  to  help  me 
learn  my  duties  as  a  soldier  quickly." 

"Ah,  well,  no  more  on  that  subject,  then!"  and  the 
lieutenant  sighed  audibly.  "Yet  it  is  a  pity,  especially 
as  you  are  of  French  birth  and  parentage,  though  brought 
up  in  America.  Your  chance  of  promotion  would  —  but 
let  us  hope  that  by  good  luck  something  may  happen  to 
give  you  the  chance  in  any  case.  Who  knows  but  both 
your  countries  may  be  proud  of  you  some  day?  Is  there 
—  nothing  you  would  care  to  tell  me  about  yourself  that 
might  enable  me  to  advise  you  later?" 

"Nothing  with  which  it  is  necessary  to  trouble  you,  my 
Lieutenant." 

"Bien!  It  remains  then  only  for  you  to  be  examined 
by  the  medecin  major.  You  have  nothing  to  fear  from  his 
report .  A  u  contraire! ' ' 

In  an  adjoining  room  two  men  were  already  waiting 
the  arrival  of  the  doctor,  who  was  due  in  a  few  minutes. 
One,  evidently  a  Frenchman,  with  a  dark,  dissipated  face, 
volunteered  the  information  that  he  was  a  chauffeur, 


134  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

whose  master  had  discharged  him  without  notice  on  ac- 
count of  an  "unavoidable  accident"  at  a  small  town  within 
walking  distance  of  Sidi-bel  Abbes.  The  other,  a  blond 
boy  who  looked  not  a  day  over  sixteen,  announced  that 
he  was  an  Alsatian  who  had  come  to  Algeria  as  a  waiter 
in  a  restaurant  car,  on  purpose  to  join  the  Legion,  and 
escape  military  service  as  a  German.  "I  shall  serve  my 
five  years,  and  become  a  French  subject,"  he  said  joy- 
ously. "Take  hold  of  my  arm.  Not  bad,  is  it,  for 
biceps  ?  For  what  age  would  you  take  me  ?  " 

"Seventeen,"  replied  Max,  adding  a  year  to  his  real 
guess. 

But  it  was  not  enough.  The  girlish  face  blushed  up  to 
the  lint-coloured  hah*,  cut  en  brosse.  "I  call  myself 
eighteen,"  said  the  child.  "Don't  you  think  the  doctor 
will  believe  me  when  he  feels  my  muscle?  " 

"I  think  he'll  give  you  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,"  Max 
assured  him,  smiling. 

"No  trouble  about  my  age!"  exulted  the  chauffeur. 
"  I  am  twenty-seven." 

He  looked  ten  years  older.  But  a  recruit  for  the  Legion 
may  take  the  age  as  well  as  the  name  he  likes  best,  pro- 
vided the  medecin  major  be  not  too  critical. 

Both  his  companions  were  keenly  curious  concerning 
Max,  and  considered  themselves  aggrieved  that,  after 
their  frankness,  he  should  choose  to  be  reserved.  They 
put  this  down  to  pride.  But  the  Legion  would  take  it  out 
of  him !  All  men  were  equal  there.  They  had  heard  that 
among  other  things. 

Before  the  stream  of  questions  had  run  dry  through 
lack  of  encouragement,  the  door  was  thrown  open,  and 


FOUR  EYES  135 

in  walked  the  doctor,  a  big,  jovial  man,  accompanied  by 
the  middle-aged  lieutenant  who  had  shown  interest  in 
Max,  and  a  weary-faced  clerk  plunged  in  gloom  by  a  bad 
cold  in  the  head.  As  they  entered,  the  two  officers  looked 
at  Max,  and  glanced  quickly  at  each  other.  They  had 
evidently  been  speaking  of  him.  But  his  examination 
was  left  till  the  last.  The  chauffeur  of  "twenty-seven" 
and  the  waiter  of  "eighteen"  were  passed  as  physically 
fit  —  bon  pour  le  service:  and  then  came  the  turn  of  the 
third  recruit,  whose  pale  blue  silk  underclothing  brought 
a  slight  twinkle  to  the  eye  of  the  jolly  medecin  major. 
Max  wished  that  it  had  occurred  to  him  to  buy  something 
cheaper  and  less  noticeable.  But  it  was  too  late  to  think 
of  that  now.  At  all  events,  he  was  grateful  for  the  tact 
and  consideration  which  had  given  him  the  last  turn. 

"Magnifique!"  exclaimed  the  doctor,  when  he  had 
pinched  and  pounded  Max,  sounded  heart  and  lungs,  and 
squeezed  his  biceps.  "Here  we  have  an  athlete."  And 
he  exchanged  another  glance  with  the  lieutenant. 

The  clerk  scribbled  industriously  and  sadly  in  his  book, 
as  Max  dressed  himself  again;  and  the  ordeal  was  over. 
When  the  third  recruit  of  the  day  had  been  given  a  paper, 
first  to  read,  and  then  to  sign  with  his  new  name,  his 
contract  for  five  years  to  serve  the  Republic  of  France  was 
made  and  completed.  Maxime  St.  George  was  a  soldier 
of  the  Legion. 

He,  with  the  ex-chauffeur  and  the  ex-waiter,  was 
marched  by  a  corporal  through  a  small  side  gate  into  the 
barrack  square;  and  the  guard,  sitting  on  a  bench  by  the 
guardhouse,  honoured  the  newcomers  with  a  stare.  The 
chauffeur  and  the  waiter  got  no  more  than  a  passing 


136  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

glance,  but  all  eyes,  especially  those  of  the  sergeant  of  the 
guard,  focussed  on  Max.  Apparently  it  was  not  every 
day  that  the  little  gate  beside  the  great  gate  opened  for  a 
gentleman  recruit.  Max  realized  again  that  he  was  con- 
spicuous, and  resigned  himself  to  the  inevitable.  This 
was  the  last  time  he  need  suffer.  In  a  few  minutes  the 
uniform  of  the  Legion  would  make  him  a  unit  among 
other  units,  and  there  would  be  nothing  to  single  him  out 
from  the  rest.  He  would  no  longer  have  even  a  name  that 
mattered.  In  losing  his  individuality  he  would  become 
a  number.  But  for  a  moment  he  felt  like  a  new  arrival 
in  a  Zoo:  an  animal  of  some  rare  species  which  drew  the 
interest  of  spectators  away  from  luckier  beasts  of  com- 
moner sorts. 

The  trio  of  recruits  stood  together  in  an  unhappy  group, 
awaiting  orders  from  the  regimental  offices;  and  the  news 
of  their  advent  must  have  run  ahead  of  them  with  magic 
speed,  swiftly  as  news  travels  in  the  desert,  for  every- 
where along  the  front  of  the  yellow  buildings  surrounding 
the  square,  windows  flew  open,  heads  of  soldiers  peered 
out,  and  voices  shouted  eagerly:  "Voila  les  bleus!" 
There  were  only  three  newcomers,  and  the  arrival  of 
recruits  in  the  barrack  square  was  an  everyday  spectacle; 
but  something  to  gaze  at  was  better  than  nothing  at  all. 
Men  in  fatigue  uniform  of  spotless  white,  their  waists 
wound  round  with  wide  blue  sashes,  came  running  rp  to 
see  the  sight,  before  les  bleus  should  be  marched  away 
and  lose  their  value  as  objects  of  interest  by  donning 
soldier  clothes.  Max  recalled  the  day  of  his  debut  at 
West  Point,  a  humble,  modest  "Pleb."  This  huge, 
gravelled  courtyard,  surrounded  on  three  sides  by  tall, 


FOUR  EYES  137 

many-windowed  barracks,  and  shut  away  from  the  Rue 
de  Tlemcen  by  high  iron  railings,  had  no  resemblance  to 
the  cadets'  barracks  of  gray  stone;  but  the  emotions 
of  the  "Pleb"  and  of  the  recruit  to  the  Legion  were  curi- 
ously alike.  The  same  thought  presented  itself  to  the 
soldier  that  had  wisely  counselled  the  new  cadet.  "I 
must  take  it  all  as  it  comes,  and  keep  my  temper  unless 
some  one  insults  me.  Then  —  well,  I'll  have  to  make 
myself  respected  now  or  never." 

"  Les  bleus!  Voila  les  bleus!"  was  the  cry  from  every 
quarter:  and  discipline  not  being  the  order  of  the  moment 
for  Legionnaires  off  duty,  young  soldiers  and  old  soldiers 
gathered  round,  making  such  remarks  as  occurred  to  them, 
witty  or  ribald.  Les  bleus  were  fair  game. 

As  a  schoolboy,  Max  had  read  in  some  book  that,  in 
the  time  of  Napoleon  First,  French  recruits  had  been 
nicknamed  "les  bleus"  because  of  the  asphyxiating  high 
collars  which  had  empurpled  their  faces  with  a  suffusion 
of  blood.  Little  had  he  dreamed  in  committing  that 
fact  to  memory  that  one  day  the  name  would  be  applied 
to  him!  Thinking  thus,  he  smiled  between  amusement 
and  bitterness;  but  the  smile  died  as  a  voice  whispered 
in  his  ear:  "For  God's  sake  don't  sell  your  clothes  to 
the  Jews.  Keep  them  for  me.  I'll  get  hold  of  them 
somehow." 

The  voice  spoke  in  French.  Max  turned  quickly,  and 
could  not  resist  a  slight  start  at  seeing  close  to  his,  the 
face  which  had  seized  his  attention  days  ago  in  the  rail- 
way station. 

The  man  who  had  then  been  dressed  in  dusty  black 
was  now  a  soldier  of  the  Legion,  in  white  fatigue  uniform, 


138  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

like  all  the  rest:  but  the  dark  face  and  night-black  eyes 
had  the  same  arresting,  tragic  appeal.  After  this  whisper, 
the  Legionnaire  drew  back,  his  look  asking  for  an  answer 
by  nod  or  shake  of  the  head.  Max  caught  the  idea  in- 
stantly. "By  jove!  the  fellow  has  made  up  his  mind  to 
desert  already!"  he  thought.  "Why?  He  hasn't  the 
air  of  a  slacker." 

There  was  no  language  he  could  choose  in  this  group 
made  up  from  a  dozen  countries,  which  might  not  be 
understood  by  one  or  all.  The  only  thing  was  to  trust 
to  the  other's  quickness  of  comprehension,  as  the  speaker 
had  trusted  to  his.  He  held  out  his  hand,  exclaiming: 
*'  C'est  vous,  man  ami!  Quel  chance! " 

The  ruse  was  understood.  His  handclasp  was  returned 
with  meaning.  Every  one  supposed  that  le  bleu  of  four 
days  ago  and  le  bleu  of  to-day  were  old  acquaintances 
who  had  found  each  other  unexpectedly. 

There  was  no  chance  for  private  speech.  A  quick  fire 
of  interrogation  volleyed  at  the  three  recruits,  especially 
at  Max.  "Are  you  French?  Are  you  German?  Are  you 
from  Switzerland — Alsace — Belgium — Italy — England?  " 
Questions  spattered  round  the  newcomers  like  a  rain  of 
bullets,  in  as  many  languages  as  the  countries  named,  and 
Max  amused  himself  by  answering  in  the  same,  whenever 
he  was  able. 

"How  many  tongues  have  you  stowed  in  that  fly-trap 
of  yours,  my  child?"  inquired  a  thin,  elderly  Legionnaire 
with  a  long  nose  and  clever,  twinkling  eyes.  No  nation 
but  Holland  could  have  produced  that  face,  and  it  was 
unnecessary  that  the  speaker  should  introduce  himself 
as  a  Dutchman.  "  Fourteen  years  have  I  served  France 


FOUR  EYES  139 

in  the  Legion.  I  have  been  to  Madagascar  and  Tonkin. 
Everywhere  I  have  found  myself  the  champion  of  lan- 
guages, which  is  only  natural,  for  I  was  translator  in  the 
State  Department  at  home  —  a  long  while  ago.  But  if 
you  can  speak  eleven  you  will  get  the  championship  over 
me.  I  have  only  as  many  tongues  as  I  have  fingers." 

"You  beat  me  by  six,"  laughed  Max,  and  the  jealous 
frown  faded. 

"Encore  un  champion!"  gayly  announced  the  round- 
faced  youth  who  had  jocosely  asked  Max  if  he  were  a 
Belgian.  "Voila  notre  joli  heros,  Pelle." 

"Quatro  oyos"  ("  Four  Eyes  ")  added  a  Spaniard.  "Papa 
van  Loo  can  beat  you  with  his  tongue;  Four  Eyes  beats 
with  his  fists." 

Sauntering  toward  les  bleus,  with  the  manner  of  a  big 
dog  who  deigns  to  visit  a  little  one,  came  a  man  of  average 
height  but  immense  girth.  His  great  beardless  face  was 
so  hideous,  so  startling,  that  Max  gaped  at  him  rudely, 
lost  in  horror.  Nose  and  lips  had  been  partly  cut  away. 
The  teeth  and  gums  showed  in  a  ghastly,  perpetual  grin. 
But  as  if  this  were  not  enough  to  single  him  out  among  a 
thousand,  a  pair  of  black,  red-rimmed  eyes  had  been  tat- 
tooed on  the  large  forehead,  just  above  a  bushy,  auburn 
line  overhanging  the  eyes  which  nature  had  pushed  deeply 
in  between  protruding  cheek  and  frontal  bones. 

"Good  heavens!"  Max  blurted  out  aloud;  and  the 
Dutchman  cackled  with  laughter.  "You're  no  French- 
man, boy!"  he  loudly  asserted  in  English.  "Now  we've 
got  at  your  own  jargon.  Go  away,  Mister  Pelle,  you're 
frightening  our  British  baby.  Or  is  it  Yankee?" 

An  angry  answer  jumped  to  the  tip  of  Max's  tongue, 


140  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

but  he  bit  it  back.  So  this  living  corpse  was  Pelle,  the 
champion  boxer  of  the  Legion,  who  would  fight  the  French- 
man! 

The  new  recruit  was  ashamed  of  the  sick  spasm  of  dis- 
gust that  closed  his  throat.  He  felt  that  it  was  a  sign  of 
raw  youth  and  amateurishness,  as  when  a  medical  student 
faints  at  first  sight  of  the  dissecting  table.  He  feared 
that  his  face  had  betrayed  him  to  these  soldiers,  many  of 
whom  had  hardened  their  nerves  on  battlefields.  Some- 
how he  must  justify  himself,  and  force  respect  from  the 
men  who  greeted  Van  Loo's  cheap  wit  with  an  apprecia- 
tive roar. 

Pelle  was  the  only  one  who  did  not  laugh.  He  came 
lumbering  along  in  silence  as  if  he  had  not  heard;  but 
Max  saw  that  the  boxer  was  aiming  straight  for  him. 
The  newly  christened  St.  George  stood  still,  waiting  to 
see  what  the  dragon  would  do.  Within  three  feet  of  the 
recruit  the  hero  of  the  Legion  came  to  a  stop  and  looked 
the  slim  figure  in  civilian  clothes  slowly  over  from  head 
to  foot,  as  Goliath  may  sarcastically  have  studied  the 
points  of  David.  The  whole  group  was  hypnotized, 
enchanted,  each  man  in  white  praying  that  it  might  be 
five  minutes  yet  before  the  corporal  returned  to  shepherd 
his  three  lambs.  Much  can  happen  in  fiev  minutes. 
Battles  can  be  won  or  lost!  and  at  anything  Pelle  might 
do,  under  provocation,  the  powers  that  were  would  wink. 
Not  an  officer  below  the  colonel  but  had  money  on  the  match 
which  was  to  come  off  in  the  barrack  square  to-morrow. 

All  four  eyes  of  Quatro  Oyos  seemed  to  stare  at  the  in- 
significant shrimp  of  a  recruit.  Max  had  but  two  eyes 
with  which  to  return  the  compliment,  but  he  made  the 


FOUR  EYES  14! 

most  of  them.  Pelle  was  not  only  hideous :  he  was  formid- 
able. The  big  square  head  and  ravaged  face  were  set 
on  a  strong  throat.  Chest  and  shoulders  were  immense, 
the  arms  too  long,  the  slightly  bowed  legs  too  short. 
Up  went  a  sledgehammer  hand,  coated  with  red  hair,  to 
scratch  the  heavy  jowl  contemplatively,  and  Max  thought 
of  a  gorilla. 

"So  you  don't  think  I'm  pretty,  eh?"  the  boxer  chal- 
lenged him,  and  Max  started  with  surprise  at  sound  of  the 
Cockney  accent,  which  came  with  a  hissing  sound  from 
the  defaced  mouth.  Pelle  was  an  Englishman ! 

The  start  was  misunderstood,  not  only  by  the  champion 
of  the  Legion,  but  by  the  surrounding  Legionnaires,  who 
tittered. 

"  Sorry  if  I  was  rude,"  remarked  Max,  with  an  air  of 
nonchalance,  to  show  that  he  was  ready  for  anything. 

"That's  no  way  to  apologize,"  said  Pelle.  "Don't 
look  at  me  like  that.  You'll  have  to  learn  better  manners 
in  the  Legion." 

"A  cat  may  look  at  a  king,"  retorted  the  recruit.  "And 
as  for  manners,  I  won't  ask  you  to  teach  them  to  me." 

"Why,  you  damned  little  Yankee  spy,  do  you  want  to 
be  pinched  between  my  thumb  and  finger  as  if  you  was  a 
flea?"  bellowed  the  boxer. 

"Try  it,  and  you'll  find  the  flea  can  bite  before  he's 
pinched,"  said  Max.  His  heart  was  thumping,  for  de- 
spite his  knowledge  of  la  boxe  he  knew  that  he  might  be 
pounded  into  a  jelly  in  another  minute.  This  man  was  a 
heavyweight.  He  was  a  lightweight.  But  whatever  hap- 
pened he  would  show  himself  game;  and  at  that  instant 
nothing  else  seemed  much  to  matter. 


142  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

Somewhat  to  his  surprise,  Pelle  burst  out  laughing. 
"Hark  to  the  bantam!"  he  exclaimed  in  French  —  execra- 
ble French,  but  a  proof  that  he  was  no  newcomer  in  the 
Legion.  "If  you  weren't  a  newspaper  spy,  my  chicken, 
I'd  let  you  off  for  your  cheek.  But  we  have  heard  all 
about  you.  Lieutenant  de  la  Tour  of  the  Spahis  knows. 
He's  told  every  one.  It  doesn't  take  long  for  news  to 
get  to  the  Legion.  I'm  going  to  teach  you  not  to  write 
lies  about  us  for  your  damned  papers.  We  get  enough 
from  Germany.  So  I  shall  make  chicken  jelly  of  you. 
See!" 

"All  right.  Come  on!"  said  Max,  more  cheerfully 
than  he  felt.  For  his  one  chance  was  in  his  youth  and 
the  method  he  had  learned  from  the  lightweight  champion 
of  the  world. 

A  ring  formed  on  the  instant,  to  screen  as  well  as  to  see 
the  spectacle.  Here  would  be  no  rounds  timed  by  an 
official,  no  seconds  to  encourage  or  revive  their  men. 
The  encounter,  such  as  it  was,  would  be  primitive  and 
savage,  asking  no  quarter  and  giving  none.  But  Max  felt 
that  his  whole  future  in  the  Legion  depended  on  its  issue. 


CHAPTER  XII 
NO.  1033 

FOR  A  second  the  contestants  eyed  each  other. 

A  strange  hush  seemed  to  fall  upon  all,  a  situation  always 
present  in  affairs  of  this  kind.  It  was  noticeable  to  Max. 
"It  might  well  be  said  that  a  calm  always  preceded  a 
storm,"  Max  reflected,  and  then  he  heard  a  voice  speak 
close  to  his  ear. 

He  dared  not  turn  his  head  for  fear  of  a  sudden  on- 
slaught by  his  antagonist,  but  even  as  low  as  the  tone  was, 
he  recognized  the  voice  —  it  was  the  same  voice  that  had 
begged  him  stealthily  for  his  civilian  clothes ! 

"Beware  of  his  foot,"  said  the  voice.  "He's  English, 
but  he  fights  French  fashion  with  la  savate." 

Max  had  not  expected  the  savate  from  an  Englishman, 
and  he  was  very  glad  of  the  warning. 

It  flashed  through  his  brain  just  what  the  terrible  savate 
could  accomplish  —  a  lightning-like  kick  landing  on  the 
jaw  of  an  adversary,  being  much  more  crushing  and 
damaging  than  the  hardest  punch. 

The  warning  came  just  in  time,  for  he  had  only  a  brief 
chance  to  steady  himself  when  Four  Eyes  rushed  at  him 
like  a  maddened  bull. 

As  he  neared  Max  he  let  go  two  terrific  swings,  first  with 
his  left  and  then  with  his  right  hand,  but  his  smaller  op- 

143 


144  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

ponent  side-stepped  with  the  nimbleness  of  a  cat,  and 
Pelle  rushed  by  two  or  three  steps  before  he  could  stop. 

At  once  he  turned  with  a  lithe  movement,  surprisingly 
graceful  for  a  body  so  big,  and  made  ready  as  though  to 
once  more  swing  his  two  flail-like  fists. 

Again  did  Max  set  himself  to  dodge  Pelle's  punches,  but 
instead  of  letting  his  two  hands  fly,  one  after  the  other,  he 
bent  his  huge  body  back  from  the  waist,  and  at  the  same 
time  shot  his  right  foot  upward  toward  the  other's  face. 

It  was  a  fearful  kick,  and  had  it  landed  on  Max's  jaw  it 
would  have  ended  the  fight  then  and  there,  indeed,  if  it  did 
not  break  his  neck.  But  that  whispered  warning  about 
the  savate  was  Max's  salvation. 

With  a  quick  backward  jerk  of  his  head  he  saved  him- 
self —  just  barely  saved  himself  —  and  the  big  foot  shot 
harmlessly  up  into  the  air,  Pelle  almost  losing  his  balance 
in  the  unsuccessful  effort. 

Before  the  latter  could  really  regain  his  footing  Max 
stepped  in  and,  with  left  and  right,  landed  full  on  his  op- 
ponent's face,  the  last  of  the  two  punches  coming  flush  on 
the  nose  with  smashing  force.  It  rocked  the  amazed 
Pelle  back  on  his  heels. 

Moreover,  the  surprise  at  the  force  of  the  blow  was  not 
greater  than  the  surprise  at  the  sudden  knowledge  of  the 
fact  that  the  "  Yankee  Spy  "  was  no  bungling  amateur, 
but  that  he  had  all  the  ear-marks  of  a  skilled  professional. 

Well,  he  could  not  be  fooled  again,  and  on  top  of  this 
thought  came  a  heavy  grunt  as  Max  again  stepped  in  and 
swung  a  swift  right  hook  to  his  stomach  and  then  jumped 
out  of  harm's  way. 

This  blow  took  Pelle's  wind  and  he  began  to  dance 


NO.    1033  145 

around  on  his  toes  with  the  lightness  of  thistledown,  despite 
his  discomfiture,  while  all  the  time  he  watched  the  clever 
Max  between  half-closed  eyes,  waiting  for  another  chance 
to  deliver  that  awful  kick  where  it  would  surely  put  the 
other  out  of  business. 

Now  and  then  the  big  man  would  try  an  occasional 
swing  at  his  elusive  opponent,  but  it  was  more  of  an  at- 
tempt to  cover  up  his  real  intention  rather  than  to  land 
effectively.  Well  he  knew  that  his  best  and  quickest 
chance  to  end  the  fight  lay  in  his  ability  to  kick  the  other 
man  insensible,  and  so  he  tried  to  fool  and  disarm  Max  by 
a  bluff  attack. 

In  this  manner  they  danced  about  each  other  for  a  short 
space;  the  American,  apparently  whenever  he  chose, 
stepped  in  and  landed  left  and  right  on  the  other's  jaw 
with  a  sound  like  the  crack  of  a  whip. 

There  was  a  snap  to  Max's  punches,  a  snap  that  stung 
and  made  an  impression,  and  so  while  the  big  man  almost 
exploded  with  fury  at  the  gruelling  he  had  to  go  through 
as  his  graceful  adversary  jumped  in  and  out  and  banged 
him,  he  still  nursed  his  best  blow  —  the  murderous  kick!  — 
holding  it  in  reserve  until  the  right  moment. 

Finally,  in  the  course  of  Max's  punishing  onslaught,  in 
which  he  was  leaping  in  and  out  with  unceasing  agility, 
he  —  stumbled!  This  was  just  what  Pelle  was  waiting 
for,  and  then,  like  the  fillip  of  a  spring-board,  the  heavy 
boot  went  toward  Max's  head ! 

Though  he  saw  it  start,  and  though  he  swung  his  head 
back,  Max  could  not  escape  it  altogether,  and  it  grazed 
his  chin.  For  an  instant  the  barrack  yard  and  the  white- 
clad  ring  of  men  swam  before  his  eyes.  It  seemed  as 


146  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

though  an  iron  bolt  had  entered  his  chin  and  gone  through 
the  top  of  his  head,  but  he  did  not  quite  lose  all  presence  of 
mind,  though  he  did  bend  away  from  the  other  until  he 
almost  fell  on  his  own  back. 

Pelle  saw  his  advantage  and,  with  a  yelp  of  joy,  jumped 
forward  and  swung  his  other  foot.  As  he  did  so  reason 
returned  to  Max  and  with  it  came  a  blind  rage  at  the  other's 
unfairness. 

With  the  quickness  of  a  panther,  and  with  the  strength 
of  ten  men,  he  swung  his  slim  body  sideways  and  then 
bent  forward  to  let  go  a  vicious  right-hand  swing  —  flush 
to  the  other's  jaw! 

The  kick  missed  Max  —  missed  him  by  a  hair  —  but 
the  punch  landed,  landed  with  every  ounce  of  bone  and 
muscle  behind  it  that  Max  had  in  his  body. 

Down  crashed  the  champion  on  the  back  of  his  skull, 
with  a  thud  amid  a  spatter  of  gravel ! 

For  an  instant  the  huge  form  lay  still,  while  the  ring 
of  Legionnaires  remained  petrified.  Suddenly  the  group 
realized  that  the  fighting  cock  had  been  beaten  by  the 
bantam. 

Then,  with  visions  of  "  cellule  "  for  every  one  concerned, 
four  or  five  men  sprang  to  pick  up  the  champion.  As  they 
got  him  to  his  feet,  blood  poured  from  his  swollen  and  dis- 
figured nose.  Coming  slowly  to  himself,  Pelle  wiped  it 
away  dazedly  with  the  back  of  a  hairy  hand,  anxious,  even 
in  semi-consciousness,  to  preserve  the  purity  of  his  uni- 
form, sacred  in  the  Legion. 

Max  stood  his  ground,  rather  expecting  to  be  attacked 
in  revenge  by  some  of  Pelle's  angry  allies;  and  the  man 
who  had  warned  him  to  beware  of  "la  savate  "  took  a  step 


NO.    1033  147 

nearer  him.     But  both  were  new  to  the  Legion  Etrangere, 
and  did  not  yet  know  the  true  spirit  of  the  regiment. 

Only  admiring  looks  were  turned  upon  the  astonished 
young  conqueror,  who  was  rather  surprised  at  his  own  easy 
victory.  As  Pelle  came  to  himself  in  his  friends'  arms,  the 
big  fellow  staggered  forward,  holding  out  a  blood-stained 
paw. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  AGHA'S  ROSE 

SANDA  did  not  know,  and  would  not  know  for  many 
days,  the  news  of  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  for  she  had  started  on  a 
long  journey,  to  the  "wonderful  place"  of  which  she  would 
have  spoken  to  Max  had  she  not  been  warned  by  her 
father's  word  and  look  that  the  story  was  "irrelevant." 
If  Sanda  had  tried  to  tell  the  tale  of  that  "romance" 
at  which  she  had  hinted  in  the  Salle  d'Honneur,  she  would 
have  had  to  begin  far  back  in  time  when,  after  his  wife's 
death,  Georges  DeLisle  had  by  his  own  request  been  trans- 
ferred to  the  Legion.  His  first  big  fight  had  been  in 
helping  the  Agha  of  Djazerta  against  a  raid  of  Touaregs, 
the  veiled  men  of  the  South,  brigands  then  and  always. 
Since  those  days,  DeLisle  and  Ben  Raana,  the  great  desert 
chief,  had  been  friends.  More  than  once  they  had  given 
each  other  aid  and  counsel.  When  Ben  Raana  came  north 
with  other  Caids,  bidden  to  the  Governor's  ball  in  Algiers, 
he  paid  DeLisle  a  visit.  Each  year  at  the  season  of 
date-gathering  he  sent  the  colonel  of  the  Legion  a  present 
of  the  honey-sweet,  amber-clear  fruit  for  which  the  oasis 
of  Djazerta  was  famous;  and  the  officer  sent  to  the  Agha 
a  parcel  of  French  books,  or  some  new  invention  in  the 
shape  of  a  clock,  such  as  Arabs  love.  Now  he  was  sending 
his  daughter. 

148 


THE  AGHA'S  ROSE  149 

The  way  of  it  was  this:  just  before  Sanda's  surprise 
arrival,  the  Agha  of  Djazerta,  chief  of  the  Ouled-Men- 
dil,  had  written  a  confidential  letter  to  Colonel  DeLisle. 
He  had  a  young  daughter  whom  he  adored.  Foolishly 
(be  began  to  think)  he  had  let  her  learn  French,  and 
allowed  her  to  read  French  novels.  These  books  had 
made  the  girl  discontented  with  her  cloistered  life.  Being 
the  only  child,  and  always  rather  delicate,  perhaps  she 
had  been  too  much  spoiled.  Greater  freedom  than  she  had 
could  not  be  granted;  but  seeing  her  sad  Ben  Raana 
had  asked  himself  what  he  could  do  for  her  happiness. 
Before  long  she  would  marry,  of  course;  but  it  had  oc- 
curred to  him  that  meanwhile  it  might  be  well  if  a  compan- 
ion could  be  found  who  would  be  a  safe  friend  for  a  girl  of 
Ourieda's  position  and  religion.  Did  Colonel  DeLisle 
know  of  any  young  gentlewoman,  English  or  French, 
who  would  be  willing  to  come  to  Djazerta?  She  must  be 
educated  and  accomplished,  but  above  all  trustworthy; 
one  who  would  not  try  to  make  Ourieda  wish  for  a  life 
that  could  never  be  hers:  one  who  would  not  attempt 
to  unsettle  the  child's  religious  beliefs.  In  writing  this 
letter  Ben  Raana  had  shown  a  naif  sort  of  conceit  in  his 
own  broad-mindedness,  which  would  have  been  rather 
comic  if  it  had  not  been  pathetic.  But  to  DeLisle  it 
was  only  pathetic,  because,  European  though  he  was,  he 
knew  the  hidden  romance  of  the  Agha's  life:  his  worship 
of  a  beautiful  Spanish  wife  who  had  died  years  ago,  and 
for  love  of  whom  he  had  vowed  never  to  take  into  his 
harem  any  other  woman,  although  he  had  no  son.  His 
nearest  male  relative  was  a  nephew,  to  whom  DeLisle 
imagined  that  some  day  Ourieda  would  be  married, 


150  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

though  the  young  man  was  at  least  a  dozen  years  older 
than  she. 

When  the  letter  came,  Colonel  DeLisle  knew  of  no  such 
person  as  Ben  Raana  asked  for;  but  he  had  not  answered 
yet  when  Sanda  unexpectedly  appeared.  Hardly  had  he 
recovered  from  the  first  shock  of  his  surprise  when  he 
remembered  the  great  march  soon  to  be  undertaken  — 
a  march  ostensibly  for  maneuvers,  but  in  reality  to 
punish  a  band  of  desert  raiders,  and  later,  men  of  the 
Legion  were  to  begin  the  laying  of  a  new  road  in  the  far 
south,  even  beyond  Djazerta.  There  would  be  no  long 
rest  for  the  colonel  of  the  First  Regiment  for  many  months, 
consequently  he  would  be  unable  to  keep  Sanda  with  him. 
She  did  not  want  to  go  back  to  France  or  Ireland,  so  she 
was  told  about  the  Agha  of  Djazerta  and  the  sixteen- 
year-old  girl,  Ourieda,  whose  Arab  name  meant  "Little 
Rose." 

Next  to  staying  at  the  headquarters  of  the  Foreign 
Legion  with  its  colonel,  Sanda  liked  the  idea  of  going  into 
the  desert  and  living  for  a  while  the  life  of  an  Arab  woman 
with  the  daughter  of  a  great  chief  of  the  south.  The 
more  she  thought  of  it,  the  more  it  appealed  to  her.  Be- 
sides, when  her  father  pointed  out  Djazerta  on  the  map, 
and  not  more  than  twenty  kilometres  away  the  douar,  or 
tribal  encampment  under  the  rule  of  Ben  Raana,  she  no- 
ticed that  they  seemed  to  be  scarcely  a  hundred  kilometres 
distant  from  Touggourt.  Probably  Richard  Stanton  would 
be  spending  many  days  or  even  weeks  at  Touggourt  before 
he  set  off  across  vast  desert  spaces  searching  for  the  Lost 
Oasis.  So  the  girl  said  to  Colonel  DeLisle  that,  since 
she  could  not  at  present  stay  with  him,  she  would  like 


THE  AGHA'S  ROSE  151 

beyond  everything  else  such  a  romantic  adventure  as  a 
visit  to  the  Agha's  house. 

The  one  objection  was  that,  if  she  went  at  all,  she  must 
start  at  once,  because  there  was  at  the  moment  a  great 
chance  for  her  to  travel  well  chaperoned.  A  captain  of 
the  Chasseurs  d'Afrique  had  just  been  ordered  from  Sidi- 
bel-Abbes  to  Touggourt,  and  was  leaving  at  once  with 
his  wife.  They  could  take  Sanda  with  them:  and  at 
Touggourt  Ben  Raana  would  have  his  friend's  daughter 
met  by  an  escort  and  several  women  servants.  It  was 
an  opportunity  not  to  miss;  though  otherwise  Colonel 
DeLisle  might  have  kept  the  girl  with  him  for  a  fortnight 
longer. 

Sanda  would  have  liked  to  bid  Max  good-bye,  or  if 
that  were  not  possible,  to  write  him  a  letter.  But  DeLisle 
said  it  "would  not  do."  Not  that  the  newly  enlisted 
soldier  would  misunderstand:  but  —  he  would  realize 
why  he  heard  nothing  more  from  his  colonel's  daughter. 
She  need  not  fear  that  he  would  be  hurt.  So  Sanda  could 
send  only  a  thought  message  to  her  friend,  and  perhaps  it 
reached  him  in  a  dream,  for  the  night  of  her  departure  — 
knowing  nothing  of  it  —  he  was  back  again  in  the  dim 
cabin  of  the  General  Morel  gazing  through  the  dusk  at  a 
long,  swinging  plait  of  gold-brown  hair. 

Sanda,  with  Captain  Amaranthe  and  his  wife,  travelled 
to  Oran,  thence  to  Biskra,  and  from  Biskra  on  the  newly 
finished  railway  line  to  Touggourt.  It  was  there  that, 
twenty-two  years  ago,  the  beautiful  Irish  girl  who  had 
run  away  from  home  to  her  soldier  lover,  joined  Georges 
DeLisle  and  married  him.  Sanda  thought  of  that,  and 
thought  again  also  that  in  a  few  months  more  Richard 


152  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

Stanton  would  come  to  Touggourt  for  the  getting  to- 
gether of  his  caravan.  These  two  thoughts  transformed 
the  wild  desert  town  with  its  palms,  and  tombs  of  murdered 
sultans,  and  its  frame  of  golden  dunes  into  a  magical  city 
of  romance.  She  felt  that  some  great  thing  ought  to 
happen  to  her  there.  It  was  not  enough  that  Touggourt 
should  give  her  a  first  glimpse  of  the  true  Sahara.  She 
wanted  it  to  give  her  more.  Nor  was  it  enough  that  she 
should  be  met  there  by  an  escort  of  Bedouins  with  a 
chief's  nephew  at  their  head,  and  negro  women  to  be  her 
servants,  and  a  white  camel  of  purest  breed  for  her  to 
ride,  she  being  hidden  like  an  Arab  princess  in  a  red-cur- 
tained bassourah.  All  this  was  wonderful,  and  thrilling 
as  an  Eastern  story  of  the  Middle  Ages;  but  it  meant 
nothing  to  her  heart.  And  something  deep  down  in  her 
expected  more  of  Touggourt  even  than  this.  She  told 
herself  that  a  place  with  such  associations  owed  more  to  a 
child  of  Georges  DeLisle  and  Sanda  De  Lisle;  and  even 
when  she  and  her  cavalcade  started  away  from  the  great 
oasis  city,  winding  southward  among  the  dunes,  she  still 
had  the  conviction  that  some  day,  before  very  long, 
Touggourt  would  pay  its  debt. 

Ben  Raana  had  done  what  he  could  to  honour  Colonel 
DeLisle  through  his  daughter.  He  had  sent  a  fine  caravan 
to  fetch  the  girl  to  Djazerta,  and  according  to  the  ideas 
of  desert  travellers,  no  luxury  was  lacking  for  her  comfort. 
His  half-sister's  son,  Sidi  Tahar  Ben  Hadj,  had  under 
him  some  of  the  best  men  of  the  Agha's  goum,  and  there 
were  a  pair  of  giant,  ink-black  eunuchs  to  guard  the 
guest  and  her  two  negresses.  Silky-soft  rugs  from  Persia 
lined  her  bassourah  on  the  side  where  she  would  sit,  the 


THE  AGHA'S  ROSE  153 

balance  being  kept  on  the  other  by  her  luggage  wrapped 
in  bundles;  and  the  whole  was  curtained  with  sumptuous 
djerbi,  striped  in  rainbow  tints.  Over  the  djerbi,  to  pro- 
tect her  from  the  sun,  or  wind  and  blowing  sand,  were 
hung  heavy  rugs  made  by  the  women  of  the  Djebel  Amour 
mountains,  the  red  and  blue  folds  ornamented  by  long 
strands  and  woollen  tassels  of  kaleidoscopic  colours. 
Sanda's  camel  (like  that  of  Ben  Hadj  and  the  one  which 
carried  the  two  negresses)  was  a  mehari,  an  animal  of  race, 
as  superior  to  ordinary  beasts  of  burden  as  an  eagle  is 
nobler  than  a  domestic  fowl.  There  was  a  musician 
among  the  camel-drivers,  chosen  especially  —  so  said 
Ben  Hadj  —  because  he  knew  and  could  sing  a  hundred 
famous  songs  of  love  and  war.  Also  he  was  master  of  the 
Arab  flute,  and  the  raita,  "Muezzen  of  Satan,"  strange 
instrument  of  the  wicked  voice  that  can  cry  down  all 
other  voices. 

Lest  the  men  should  misunderstand  and  think  lightly 
of  the  Agha's  guest,  his  nephew  did  not  look  upon  Sanda's 
face  after  the  hour  of  meeting  her  at  Touggourt,  in  the 
presence  of  her  friends,  until  he  had  brought  the  girl 
to  his  uncle's  house,  three  days  later.  She  was  waited 
upon  only  by  the  women  and  the  two  black  giants  who 
rode  behind  the  white  camels:  and  altogether  Sidi  Tahar 
Ben  Hadj  was  in  his  actions  an  example  of  that  Arab 
chivalry  about  which  Sanda  had  read.  Nevertheless  she 
was  not  able  to  like  him. 

For  one  thing,  though  he  had  a  fine  bearing  and  a  good 
enough  figure  (so  far  as  she  could  tell  in  his  flowing  robes 
and  burnous),  in  looks  he  was  no  hero  of  romance,  but  a 
disappointingly  ugly  man.  Ourieda,  the  Agha's  daughter, 


154  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

was  only  sixteen,  and  Tahar  was  supposed  to  be  no  more 
than  a  dozen  years  her  elder,  but  he  appeared  nearer 
forty  than  twenty-eight.  He  had  suffered  from  smallpox, 
which  had  marred  his  large  features  and  destroyed  the 
sight  of  one  eye.  It  had  turned  white  and  looked,  thought 
Sanda,  like  the  eye  of  a  boiled  fish.  He  wore  a  short  black 
beard  that,  although  thick,  showed  the  shape  of  a  heavy 
jaw;  and  his  wide-open,  quivering  nostrils  gave  him  the 
look  of  a  bad-tempered  horse.  Although  he  could  speak 
French,  he  seemed  to  the  girl  singularly  alien  and  remote. 
Sanda  wondered  if  he  had  a  wife,  or  wives,  and  pitied 
any  Arab  woman  unfortunate  enough  to  be  shut  up  in  his 
harem. 

On  the  third  morning  the  great  dunes  were  left  behind, 
and  the  bassourahs  no  longer  swayed  like  towers  in  a 
rotary  earthquake  with  the  movements  of  the  camels. 
Far  away  across  a  flat  expanse  of  golden  sand,  silvered 
by  saltpetre,  a  long,  low  cloud  —  blue-green  as  a  peacock's 
tail  —  trailed  on  the  horizon.  It  was  the  oasis  of  Djazerta, 
with  its  thousands  of  date  palms. 

At  first  the  vision  seemed  to  float  behind  a  veil  of 
sparkling  gauze,  unreal  as  a  mirage;  but  toward  noon  it 
brightened  and  sharpened  in  outline,  until  at  last  the  tall 
trees  took  individual  form,  bunches  of  unripe  dates  be- 
neath their  spread  fan  of  plumes  hanging  down  like  im- 
mense yellow  fists  at  the  end  of  limp,  thin  arms  cased  in 
orange-coloured  gloves. 

There  was  a  chott,  or  dried  desert  lake,  glistening  white 
and  livid  blue,  full  of  ghostly  reflections,  to  cross;  but 
once  on  the  other  side  all  the  poetic  romance  of  fairy 
gardens  and  magic  mirrors  vanished.  The  vast  oasis 


THE  AGHA'S  ROSE  155 

rose  out  of  earthy  sand  and  cracked  mud;  and  the  houses 
piled  together  beyond  it  were  no  longer  cubes  of  molten 
gold,  but  squalid,  primitive  buildings  of  sun-dried  brick 
crowding  each  other  for  shade  and  protection,  their  only 
beauty  in  general  effect  and  bizarre  outline. 

"Am  I  to  live  in  one  of  those  mud  hovels?"  Sanda  won- 
dered. She  was  not  disheartened  even  by  this  thought, 
for  the  novelty  of  the  whole  experience  had  keyed  her  up 
to  enjoy  any  adventure;  still  it  was  a  relief  to  go  swaying 
past  the  huddled  town,  and  to  stop  before  a  high,  white- 
washed wall  with  a  small  tower  on  each  side  of  a  great 
gate.  Over  the  top  of  the  wall  Sanda  could  see  the  flat 
roof  of  a  large,  low  house,  not  yellow  like  the  others,  but 
pearly  white  as  the  two  or  three  minarets  that  gleamed 
above  the  fringe  of  palms. 

Somebody  must  have  been  watching  from  one  of  the 
squat  towers  by  the  gate  —  each  of  which  had  a  loophole- 
window  looking  out  over  the  caravan  way  —  for  even 
before  the  head  man  of  the  cavalcade  could  reach  the 
shut  portals  of  faded  gray  palm-wood,  both  gates  were 
thrown  open,  and  a  dozen  men  in  white  rushed  out. 
They  uttered  shouts  of  joy  at  sight  of  Sidi  Tahar  Ben 
Hadj,  as  though  he  had  been  absent  for  months  instead 
of  a  few  days,  and  some  of  the  oldest  brown  faces  bent 
to  kiss  his  shoulders  or  elbows. 

Sanda  saw  a  bare  courtyard  paved  only  with  hard- 
packed,  yellow  sand;  and  the  long  front  of  the  house  with 
its  few  small  windows  looked  unsympathetic  and  unat- 
tractive. The  girl  felt  disappointed.  She  had  imagined 
a  picturesque  house,  a  sort  of  "Kubla  Khan"  palace  in  the 
desert;  and  she  had  expected  that  perhaps  Ourieda  *nd 


156  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

her  father,  the  Agha,  would  come  ceremoniously  out 
through  a  vast  arched  doorway  to  welcome  her.  But 
here  there  was  not  even  the  arched  entrance  of  her  fancy, 
only  two  small  doors  set  as  far  as  possible  from  one 
another  in  the  blank  facade.  Sanda's  mehari  was  led  in 
front  of  the  eastern  door,  which  was  pulled  ajar  in  a 
secretive  way.  One  of  the  big  negroes  helped  her  out  of 
the  bassourah  as  usual,  when  he  had  forced  the  white 
camel  to  its  knees;  and  to  her  surprise  the  other  black 
man  made  of  his  long  white  burnous  a  kind  of  screen 
behind  which  she  might  pass  without  being  seen.  The 
women  servants  —  already  out  of  their  bassourah  —  came 
hurrying  along  to  join  her,  silver  bracelets  a-jingle,  chat- 
tering encouragement  in  Arab,  scarcely  a  word  of  which 
could  Sanda  understand. 

Inside  the  house  was  a  queer  kind  of  vestibule,  evidently 
intended  for  defence,  with  a  jutting  screen  of  wall  behind 
the  door,  and  then  a  passage  with  a  sharp  turn  in  it,  and 
seats  along  the  sides.  A  very  old,  withered  negro  let 
them  in;  and  still  it  seemed  to  the  girl  an  unfriendly 
greeting  for  her  father's  daughter,  one  who  had  come  so 
far.  But  in  a  minute  more  she  gave  a  little  cry  of  pleasure, 
and  suddenly  understood  the  mystery.  This  part  of  the 
house  was  the  harem,  secret  and  sacred  to  the  women,  since 
the  very  meaning  of  the  word  "harem"  is  "hidden." 

She  had  been  ushered  through  a  long,  dim  corridor, 
with  a  sheen  of  pink  and  purple  tiles  halfway  up  the 
white  wall  to  the  dark  wood  of  a  roughly  carved  ceiling, 
and  instead  of  coming  into  a  room  at  the  end,  she  walked 
unexpectedly  into  a  large  fountain  court,  bright  with  the 
crystal  brightness  of  spraying  water  and  the  colour  of 


THE  AGHA'S  ROSE  157 

flowers,  shaded  with  orange  trees  whose  blossoms  poured 
out  perfume. 

Perhaps  it  was  not  such  a  wonderful  place  really,  for 
the  house  walls  were  only  of  sun-dried  sand-brick,  white- 
washed till  they  gleamed  like  snow  in  sunlight;  and  the 
wooden  balustrades  of  the  narrow  balcony  that  jutted 
out  from  the  upper  story  were  but  roughly  carved  in  stars 
and  crescents,  and  painted  brown  to  represent  cedarwood. 
Yet  it  was  a  picture.  The  stem  of  the  octagonal  tiled 
fountain  was  of  time-worn,  creamy  marble;  the  white 
house  was  draped  with  cascades  of  wistaria,  and  pale 
pink  bougainvillea;  underneath  the  shadow  of  the  over- 
hanging balcony  ran  wall-seats  covered  and  backed  with 
charming  old  tiles  of  blue  and  white  "ribbon"  design; 
on  them  were  spread  white  woollen,  black-striped  rugs 
delicately  woven  by  Kabyle  women;  Tuareg  cushions  of 
stamped  leather,  and  pillows  of  brilliant  purple  and  gold 
brocade  silk.  Though  no  grass  carpeted  the  earthy  sand, 
there  were  beds  of  gorgeous  flowers  under  the  orange  and 
magnolia  trees  that  patterned  the  yellow  sand  with  lacy 
shadow,  and  a  girl  like  an  Arabian  Nights' princess  stopped 
feeding  a  tame  gazelle  and  a  troop  of  doves,  to  come  for- 
ward shyly  at  sight  of  Sanda.  She  was  the  soul  of  the 
picture  for  the  moment.  Sanda  did  not  even  see  that 
there  were  other  women  in  it.  Nothing  counted  except  the 
girl.  Everything  else  was  a  mere  background  or  a  frame. 

There  was  but  a  second  of  silence  before  words  came  to 
either,  yet  that  instant  impressed  upon  Sanda  so  sharply, 
so  clearly,  every  detail  of  Ouri'eda's  fantastic  beauty,  that 
if  she  had  never  seen  the  girl  again,  she  could  by  closing 
her  eyes  have  called  up  the  vision. 


158  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

The  oval  face  was  so  fair  and  purely  chisel' ed  that  it 
seemed  Greek  rather  than  Arab.  The  golden-brown  eyes 
were  large  and  full  of  dazzling  light  as  the  sun  streamed 
into  them  under  the  curve  of  their  heavy  black  lashes. 
But  though  they  were  bright  they  were  very  sad,  keeping 
their  infinite  melancholy  while  the  red  lips  smiled  —  the 
sad,  far-off  gaze  of  a  desert  creature  caged.  So  long  were 
the  lashes  that  they  curled  up  almost  to  the  low-drawn 
brows  which  drooped  toward  the  temples;  and  that  droop 
of  the  eyebrows,  with  the  peculiar  fineness  of  the  aquiline 
nose  and  the  downward  curve  of  the  very  short  upper  lip, 
gave  a  fatal  and  tragic  look  to  the  ivory  face  framed  in 
dark  hair.  On  either  side  its  delicate  oval  fell  a  thick 
brown  braid,  not  black,  but  with  a  glint  of  red  where  the 
light  struck;  and  though  Ouriieda's  hair  was  not  so  long 
as  Sanda's,  the  two  plaits  lying  over  the  shoulders  and 
following  the  line  of  the  young  bust  fell  below  the  waist. 
The  girl  wore  a  loose  robe  of  coral-red  silk,  low  in  the  neck, 
and  belted  in  with  a  soft,  violet-coloured  sash.  Over  this 
dress  was  a  gandourah  of  golden  gauze  with  rose  and  purple 
glints  in  its  woof;  and  a  stiff,  gold  scarf  was  wound  loosely 
round  the  dark  head.  The  colours  blazed  like  flaming 
jewels  in  the  African  sunshine.  As  the  Agha's  daughter 
moved  forward  smiling  her  sad  little  smile,  there  came 
with  her  a  waft  of  perfume  like  the  fragrance  of  lilies; 
and  the  tinkling  of  bracelets  on  slender  wrists,  the  clash 
of  anklets  on  silk-clad  ankles,  was  like  a  musical  accom- 
paniment, a  faintly  played  leit  motif.  Perhaps  Ourieda 
had  dressed  herself  in  all  she  had  that  was  most  beautiful  in 
honour  of  her  guest. 

As  usual,  Sanda  forgot  herself  with  the  first  thrill  of 


THE  AGHA'S  ROSE  159 

excitement.  In  her  admiration  she  did  not  realize  that 
the  other  girl  was  self-conscious,  a  little  frightened,  a 
little  anxious,  and  even  distrustful.  It  would  have 
seemed  incredible  to  Sanda  DeLisle  that  any  one  on 
earth,  even  an  inmate  of  a  harem,  could  possibly  be  afraid 
of  her. 

She  held  out  both  hands  impulsively,  exclaiming  in 
French:  "Oh,  are  you  Ourleda?  But  you  are  beautiful 
as  a  princess  in  a  fairy  story.  You  are  worth  coming  all 
this  long  way  to  see ! " 

Then  the  Arab  girl's  smile  changed,  and  for  an  instant 
was  radiant,  unclouded  by  any  thought  of  sadness.  She 
took  Sanda's  little  gloved  hands,  and,  pressing  them 
affectionately,  bent  forward  to  kiss  her  guest  on  both 
cheeks.  Her  lips  were  soft  and  cool  as  flower  petals, 
though  the  day  was  hot,  and  the  scent  of  lilies  swept 
over  Sanda  in  a  fragrant  wave.  As  she  kissed  the  stranger, 
Ourleda  made  little  birdlike  sucking  sounds,  in  the  fashion 
of  Arab  women  when  they  would  show  honour  to  a  fa- 
voured friend.  First  she  kissed  Sanda's  right  cheek,  the 
right  side  of  the  body  being  nobler  because  the  White 
Angel  walks  always  on  the  right,  jotting  down  in  his  book 
every  good  deed  done;  then  she  kissed  the  left  cheek, 
since  it  is  at  the  left  side  of  man  or  woman  that  the  wicked 
Black  Angel  stalks,  tempting  to  evil  acts,  and  hastily 
recording  them  before  they  can  be  repented. 

"Why,  you  are  as  young  as  I  am,  and  white  and  gold 
as  the  little  young  moon,  and  very,  very  sweet,  like 
honey!"  cried  the  girl,  in  French  as  good  as  Sanda's, 
though  with  the  throaty,  thrushlike  notes  that  Spaniards 
and  Arabs  put  into  every  language.  "I  am  glad,  oh, 


160  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

really  glad,  that  you  have  come  to  be  with  me!  Now  I 
see  you  I  know  I  was  foolish  to  be  afraid." 

Sanda  laughed  as  they  stood  holding  each  other's 
hands  and  looking  into  each  other's  eyes.  "Afraid  of 
me?"  she  echoed.  "Oh,  you  couldn't  have  been  afraid 
of  me!" 

"But  I  was,"  said  Ourieda.  "I  was  afraid  until  this 
minute." 

"Why?"  asked  Sanda.  "Did  you  fancy  I  might  be 
big  and  old  and  cross,  perhaps  with  stick-out  teeth  and 
spectacles,  like  Englishwomen  in  French  caricatures?" 

Ourieda  shook  her  head,  still  gazing  at  her  guest  as  if 
she  would  read  the  soul  whose  experiences  had  been  so 
different  from  her  own.  "No,  I  have  never  seen  any 
French  caricatures,"  she  answered.  "I  hardly  know 
what  they  are.  And  I  did  not  think  you  would  be  old, 
because  the  Agha,  my  father,  told  me  you  were  but  a  baby 
when  he  first  knew  your  father,  the  Colonel  DeLisle. 
Still,  I  did  not  understand  that  you  would  look  as  young 
as  I  do,  or  that  you  would  have  a  face  like  a  white  flower, 
and  eyes  with  truth  shining  in  them,  as  our  wise  women 
say  it  shines  up  like  a  star  out  of  darkness  from  the  bottom 
of  a  well." 

"In  my  country  they  say  the  very  same  thing  about 
truth  and  a  well,"  returned  Sanda,  blushing  faintly  under 
the  oddly  compelling  gaze  of  the  sad  young  eyes.  "But 
do  tell  me  why  you  felt  afraid,  if  you  didn't  think  I  should 
be  old  and  disagreeable?  " 

Suddenly  the  other's  face  changed.  A  queer  look  of 
extraordinary  eagerness,  almost  of  slyness,  transformed 
it,  chasing  away  something  of  its  soft  beauty.  "Hush!" 


THE  AGHA'S  ROSE  161 

she  said,  "we  can't  talk  of  such  things  now.  Some  time 
soon,  perhaps!  I  forgot  we  were  not  alone.  I  must 
introduce  you  to  my  Aunt  Mabrouka,  my  father's  widowed 
half-sister,  who"  —  and  her  voice  hardened  —  "is  like  a 
second  mother  to  me." 

She  stepped  back,  and  an  elderly  woman,  who  had 
stood  in  the  background  awaiting  her  turn  (though  far 
from  humbly,  to  judge  by  the  flashing  of  her  eyes),  moved 
forward  to  welcome  the  Roumia  —  the  foreigner. 

Then  for  the  first  time  Sanda  realized  that  Ourieda,  the 
soul  of  the  picture,  was  not  the  only  human  figure  in  it 
besides  herself.  Leila*  Mabrouka  was  a  personality,  too, 
and  if  she  had  been  a  woman  of  some  progressive  country, 
marching  with  the  times,  most  probably  she  would  have 
been  among  the  Suffragists.  She  would  have  made  a 
handsome  man,  and  indeed  looked  rather  like  a  stout, 
short  man  of  middle  age,  disguised  as  an  inmate  of  his 
own  harem.  She  was  dressed  in  white,  Arab  mourning, 
considered  unlucky  for  women  who  have  not  lost  some 
relative  by  death,  and  her  square,  wrinkled  face,  the 
colour  of  bronze,  was  dark  and  harsh  in  contrast.  If  she 
had  not  been  partly  screened  by  a  great  flowering  pome- 
granate bush  as  she  sat  in  her  white  dress  against  the 
white  house  wall,  Sanda  would  have  seen  her  on  entering 
the  court;  but  it  was  hopeless  to  try  and  appease  the  lady's 
scarcely  stifled  vexation  with  apologies  or  explanations. 
Leila  Mabrouka,  being  of  an  older  generation,  had  not 
troubled  to  learn  French,  and  could  understand  only  a 
few  words  which  her  naturally  quick  mind  had  assorted 
in  hearing  the  Agha  talk  with  his  daughter.  Ourieda 

*Lella,  lady. 


162  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

acted  as  interpreter  for  the  politeness  of  her  aunt  and 
guest,  but  Sanda  could  not  help  realizing  that  all  was  not 
well  between  the  two.  A  tall  old  negress  (introduced  by 
the  girl  as  a  beloved  nurse),  a  woman  of  haggard  yet 
noble  face,  stood  dutifully  behind  Leila  Mabrouka,  but 
stabbed  the  broad  white  back  with  keen,  suspicious 
glances  that  softened  into  love  as  her  great  eyes  turned 
to  the  "Little  Rose." 

Honey  could  be  no  sweeter  than  the  words  of  welcome 
translated  by  Ourieda,  and  when  Sanda's  answers  had 
been  put  into  Arabic,  Leila  Mabrouka  received  them 
graciously.  Soon  aunt  and  niece  and  servant  were  all 
chattering  and  smiling,  offering  coffee  and  fruit,  and  as- 
suring the  Roumia  that  her  host  was  eagerly  awaiting 
permission  to  meet  her.  Yet  Sanda  could  not  rid  herself 
of  the  impression  that  some  hidden  drama  was  being 
secretly  played  in  this  fountain  court  of  sunshine  and 
flowers. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

TWO   ON  THE  ROOF 

"COME  up  on  the  roof  with  me,  and  I  will  tell  you  that 
thing  I  have  been  waiting  to  tell  you,"  said  Ourieda. 
"Aunt  Mabrouka  will  not  follow  us  there,  because  she  hates 
going  up  the  narrow  stairs  with  the  high  steps.  Besides, 
she  will  perhaps  think  I  really  want  to  show  you  the  sunset." 
Sanda  had  been  in  the  Agha's  house  for  three  days,  and 
always  since  the  first  evening  a  fierce  simoon  had  been 
hurling  the  hot  sand  against  the  shut  windows  like  spray 
from  a  wild  golden  sea.  It  had  not  been  possible  to  sit 
in  the  fountain  court  of  the  harem,  the  hidden  garden  of 
the  women,  protected  though  it  was  by  four  high  walls. 
Sanda  and  Ourieda  had  scarcely  been  alone  together  for 
more  than  a  few  minutes  at  a  time,  and  even  if  they  had 
been,  Ourieda  would  not  have  spoken.  As  she  said,  she 
had  been  waiting.  Sanda  had  felt,  during  the  three  days, 
that  she  was  being  watched  and  studied,  not  only  by 
Leila  Mabrouka,  but  by  the  girl.  Then-  eyes  were  always 
on  her;  and  though  Sanda  DeLisle  was  very  young,  and 
had  never  tried  consciously  to  become  a  student  of  human 
character,  it  seemed  to  her,  in  these  new  and  strange  con- 
ditions of  life  which  sharpened  her  powers  of  discernment, 
that  she  could  dimly  read  what  the  brains  behind  the 
eyes  were  thinking. 

163 


164  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

Leila  Mabrouka's  eyes,  though  old  (as  age  is  counted 
with  Arab  women)  were  beady-bright  and  keen  as  a  hawk's, 
yet  she  was  clever  enough  to  veil  thought  by  wearing  the 
expressionless  mask  of  an  idol  in  the  presence  of  the  girls. 
Sanda  had  to  pierce  that  veil;  and  she  felt  as  if  from  behind 
it  a  hostile  thing  peered  out,  spying  for  treachery  in  the 
new  inmate  of  the  house,  hoping  rather  than  fearing  to 
find  it,  and  ready  to  pounce  if  a  chance  came.  The 
stealthy  watcher  seemed  to  be  saying,  "What  are  you 
here  for,  daughter  of  Christian  dogs?  You  must  have 
some  scheme  in  your  head  to  defeat  our  hopes  and  wishes ; 
but  if  you  have,  I'll  find  out  what  it  is,  and  break  it  - 
break  you,  too,  if  need  be." 

No  sinister  thing  looked  out  from  the  eyes  of  Ourieda, 
but  something  infinitely  sad  and  wistful  kept  repeating: 
"Can  I  trust  you?  Oh,  I  think  so,  I  believe  so,  more  and 
more.  But  it  is  so  desperately  important  to  be  certain. 
I  must  wait  a  little  while  yet." 

Always,  through  the  countless  inquiries  of  Leila  Ma- 
brouka  and  the  girl  about  France  and  England  (Ireland 
meant  nothing  to  them)  and  Sanda's  bringing  up,  and 
the  life  of  women  in  Europe,  the  visitor  was  conscious 
of  the  real  questions  in  their  souls.  But  on  the  third  day 
the  feverish  anxiety  had  burnt  itself  out  behind  Ourieda's 
topaz-brown  eyes.  They  were  eager  still,  but  clear,  and 
her  wistful  smile  was  no  longer  strained.  Whatever  the 
burden  was  that  she  hid,  she  had  decided  to  beg  Sanda's 
help  in  carrying  or  getting  rid  of  it.  And  instinctively 
realizing  this,  Sanda  ceased  to  feel  that  the  Arab  girl  was 
of  an  entirely  different  world  from  hers,  remote  as  a 
creature  of  another  planet.  The  Agha's  daughter  was 


TWO  ON  THE  ROOF  165 

transformed  in  the  eyes  of  her  guest.  From  a  mere 
picturesque  figure  in  a  vivid  fairy  tale,  she  became  pa- 
thetically, poignantly  human.  Sanda  began  to  hear  the 
call  of  another  soul  yearning  to  have  her  soul  as  its 
friend,  and  all  that  was  warm  and  impulsive  in  her  re- 
sponded. A  thrill  of  expectation  stirred  in  her  veins 
when,  on  the  evening  of  the  third  day,  after  the  wind  had 
died  a  sudden,  swift  death,  Ourieda  whispered  the  real 
reason  for  going  up  to  the  roof. 

Sanda  had  been  looking  forward  to  mounting  those 
narrow  stairs  (with  the  steep  steps  which  Leila  Mabrouka 
hated),  because  Ourieda  had  several  times  spoken  of  the 
view  far  away  to  the  dunes,  and  the  wonderful  colours  of 
sunrise  and  sunset,  when  the  sky  flowered  like  a  hanging 
garden.  Perhaps  the  Arab  girl  had  been  cleverly  "work- 
ing up"  to  this  moment,  so  that  the  suggestion,  made 
instantly  after  the  death  of  the  simoon,  might  seem 
natural  to  her  aunt.  In  any  case  it  was  as  Ourieda  had 
hoped.  Leila  Mabrouka  did  not  follow  the  girls. 

When  they  came  out  on  the  flat  white  expanse  of  roof, 
Sanda  gave  a  cry  of  surprised  admiration.  She  had  known 
it  would  be  beautiful  up  there,  to  see  so  far  over  the 
desert,  but  the  real  picture  was  more  wonderful  than  her 
imagination  could  have  painted.  The  sun  had  just 
dropped  behind  the  waving  line  of  dunes  and  dragged  the 
fierce  wind  with  him  like  a  tiger  in  leash.  All  the  world 
was  magically  still  after  the  constant  purring  and  roaring 
of  the  new-conquered  beast.  The  voice  of  the  Muezzin 
chanting  the  sunset  call  to  prayer  —  the  prayer  of  Moghreb 
-  seemed  only  to  emphasize  the  vast  silence.  Up  from 
the  shimmering  gold  of  the  western  sky,  behind  the  gold  of 


166  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

the  dunes,  slowly  moved  along  separate  spears  of  flame- 
bright  rose,  like  the  fingers  of  a  gigantic  Hand  of  Fatma 
spread  across  the  sapphire  heaven  to  bless  her  father's 
people.  From  this  flaming  sign  in  the  west  poured  a  pink 
radiance  as  of  falling  rubies.  The  wonderful  light  rained 
over  the  marble  whiteness  of  the  distant  mosque  —  the 
great  mosque  of  Djazerta  —  and  fired  the  whole  mass  of 
the  piled  oasis- town  behind  its  dark  line  of  palms.  The 
light  showered  roses  over  the  girls'  heads  and  dresses, 
stained  the  snow  of  the  roof,  with  its  low,  bubbling  domes, 
and  streaming  eastward  turned  flat  plain  and  far  billow- 
ing dune  into  a  sea  of  flame. 

Sanda's  spirit  worshipped  the  incredible  beauty  of  the 
scene,  and  then  flew  northward  to  the  two  men  whom  she 
loved.  She  thought  of  her  father,  and  wondered  where 
Richard  Stanton  was  at  that  moment.  Then  Max  Doran's 
face  came  between  her  and  the  man  she  had  named  "Sir 
Knight."  She  remembered  her  dream  of  herself  and 
Max  in  the  desert,  and  was  vexed  because  she  had  not 
dreamed  the  same  dream  about  Stanton  instead. 

"How  wonderful  it  is  here!"  she  half  whispered,  and 
Ourieda  answered  impatiently : 

"Yes,  it  is  wonderful;  but  don't  let  us  talk  of  it,  or  even 
think  of  it  any  more,  because  I  have  so  much  to  say  to  you, 
and  Aunt  Mabrouka  will  send  to  call  us  if  my  father 
comes.  Besides,  we  can  see  this  on  any  night  when  the 
wind  does  not  blow." 

She  had  in  her  hand  a  large  silk  handkerchief  tied  in  the 
form  of  a  bag;  and  sitting  down  on  the  low,  queerly  battle- 
mented  wall  which  protected  the  flat  roof,  she  untied  and 
opened  the  bundle  on  her  lap.  It  was  full  of  yellow  grain, 


TWO  ON  THE  ROOF  167 

and  she  gave  Sanda  a  handful.  "That's  for  the  doves," 
she  said.  "They  will  know  somehow  that  we  are  here, 
and  presently  they  will  come.  If  Aunt  Mabrouka  sends 
her  own  woman,  Taous,  up  to  listen  and  spy  on  us  she 
will  find  us  feeding  the  doves." 

"But  why  should  Leila  Mabrouka  do  such  a  thing?" 
Sanda  ventured  to  ask,  taking  the  grain,  and  seating 
herself  beside  Ourieda. 

"You  will  understand  that,  and  a  great  many  other 
things,  when  I  have  told  you  what  I  am  going  to  tell," 
answered  the  "Little  Rose."  "From  books  my  father 
has  let  me  read,  and  from  things  you  have  said,  I  have 
seen  that  Roumia  girls  are  not  like  us,  even  in  their 
thoughts.  Perhaps  you  are  thinking  now  that  I  am  very 
sly;  and  so  I  am,  but  not  because  I  love  slyness.  It  is 
only  because  I  have  to  be  subtle  in  self-defence  against 
those  who  are  older  and  wiser  than  I  am.  Everything  in 
our  lives  makes  us  women  stealthy  as  cats.  It  is  not  our 
fault.  At  least,  it  is  not  mine.  Some  women  —  some 
girls  —  may  enjoy  the  excitement,  but  not  I.  Perhaps  I 
am  different  from  others,  because  I  have  the  blood  of 
Europe  in  my  veins.  My  father's  mother  was  Sicilian. 
My  own  mother  was  Spanish.  And  he,  my  father,  is  an 
enlightened  man,  with  broader  views  and  more  knowledge 
of  the  world  than  most  Caids  of  the  south.  They  all 
pride  themselves  on  knowing  a  little  French  in  these  days, 
he  tells  me,  and  some  have  even  made  visits  to  Paris 
once  in  their  lives.  But  you  know  already  what  he  is." 

"Yes,  he  is  a  magnificent  man,"  Sanda  agreed,  "even 
greater  than  I  expected  from  what  my  father  said  of 
him." 


168  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

She  had  met  the  Agha  only  once,  for  a  ceremonious 
half -hour  on  the  evening  of  her  arrival  at  his  house,  when 
he  had  begged  permission  as  of  a  visiting  princess  to  see 
and  welcome  her;  yet  this  punctiliousness  was  not  neglect, 
but  Arab  courtesy;  and  Ben  Raana  had  talked  to  her  of  the 
world  in  general  and  Paris  in  particular,  in  French,  which, 
though  somewhat  stilted  and  guttural,  was  curiously 
Parisian  in  wording  and  expression.  He  was  one  of  the 
handsomest  men  she  had  ever  seen,  scarcely  darker  in 
colour  than  many  Frenchmen  of  the  Midi,  and  marvel- 
lously dignified,  with  his  long  black  beard,  his  great,  sad 
eyes  whose  overhanging  line  of  brow  almost  met  above  the 
eagle  nose,  and  the  magnificent  gray,  silver  embroidered 
burnous  worn  in  the  guest's  honour.  He  had  appeared  to 
Sanda  years  younger  than  the  widowed  Mabrouka;  and 
though  she  was  a  dark,  withered  likeness  of  him,  it  was 
not  surprising  to  learn  that  Leila  Mabrouka  was  only  a 
half-sister  of  the  Agha,  born  of  an  Arab  mother. 

"You  know  he  has  had  but  one  wife,  my  own  mother," 
Ourieda  said  proudly.  "That  is  considered  almost  a  sin 
in  our  religion,  yet  he  could  never  bring  himself  to  look 
with  love  on  any  woman,  after  her,  nor  to  give  her  a 
rival,  even  for  the  sake  of  having  a  son.  I  adore  him  for 
that  —  how  could  I  help  it,  since  he  says  I  am  her  image? 
—  and  for  letting  me  learn  things  Arab  girls  of  the  south 
are  seldom  taught,  in  order  that  I  may  have  some- 
thing of  her  cleverness  that  held  his  love,  as  her  beauty 
won  it.  Yet,  if  he  had  married  a  second  wife  when  my 
mother  died,  and  she  had  given  him  a  son,  my  life  would 
be  happier  now." 

"How  can  that  be?"  asked  Sanda.     "I  couldn't  love 


TWO  ON  THE  ROOF  i69 

my  father  in  the  way  I  do  if  he  had  put  somebody  else 
in  my  mother's  place,  and  spoiled  all  the  beautiful  ro- 
mance." 

"My  father's  romance  with  my  mother  was  like  a 
strange  poem,  for  she  was  the  daughter  of  Catholic  Span- 
ish people,  who  had  an  orange  plantation  near  Blida,  and 
wished  her  to  enter  a  convent.  But  my  father  rode  by 
with  some  French  officers  and  saw  her  on  her  way  to 
church.  That  one  look  decided  their  whole  lives.  Yes, 
it  would  have  been  a  pity  to  spoil  their  romance;  yet, 
keeping  its  poetry  is  spoiling  mine." 

"You  mean  your  Aunt  Mabrouka.  But  a  stepmother 
might  be  worse." 

"No,  it  isn't  only  Aunt  Mabrouka  I  am  thinking  of. 
It  is  her  son,  who  is  my  father's  heir  because  he  has  no 
son  of  his  own.  My  father  is  very  enlightened  in  many 
ways,  but  in  others  he  is  as  narrow  and  hard  as  the  rest 
of  our  people,  who  hold  to  their  old  customs  more  firmly 
than  they  hold  to  life.  My  father  intends  me  for  the 
wife  of  Si  Tahar,  who  met  and  brought  you  to  our  house." 

Sanda  could  not  keep  back  a  little  gasp  of  dismay. 
"Oh,  no!  it's  not  possible!"  she  cried.  "You're  so  beau- 
tiful, and  so  fair.  He's  so  —  so  — 

"Hideous.  Don't  be  afraid  to  say  the  word  to  me. 
I  love  you  for  it.  But  because  Tahar's  not  deformed  from 
birth,  and  the  strength  and  beauty  of  the  line  isn't 
threatened,  his  looks  make  no  difference  to  my  father. 
To  him  it  seems  far  more  important  that  I  should  be  the 
wife  of  the  heir,  so  that  money  and  land  need  not  be 
divided  after  his  death,  than  that  I  should  love  my  hus- 
band before  my  marriage.  You  see,  that  can  hardly 


170  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

ever  happen  to  a  girl  of  our  race  and  religion.  If  Tahar 
were  not  my  cousin  I  should  never  even  have  seen  him, 
nor  he  me.  And  if  I  had  not  seen  him,  it  would  perhaps 
be  a  little  better,  for  there  would  be  the  excitement  and 
mystery  of  the  unknown.  We  are  brought  up  to  expect 
that;  and  if  already  I  hadn't  learned  to  dislike  Tahar  for 
his  own  sake  and  his  mother's,  I  should  be  no  worse  off 
than  other  girls  —  except  for  one  thing:  the  great  thing  of 
my  life." 

Her  voice  fell  lower  than  before,  and  her  companion  on 
the  wall  had  to  bend  close  to  catch  the  whisper.  "What 
is  that  thing?  "  Sanda  dropped  the  words  into  a  frightened 
pause,  while  Ourieda's  glance  went  quickly  to  the  well  of 
the  staircase. 

"It  is  what  I  came  here  to  tell  you  about,"  the  Arab 
girl  answered.  "I  forced  myself  to  wait,  but  now  I  am 
sure  of  you  as  if  you  were  my  own  sister.  We  are  going 
to  open  our  hearts  to  each  other.  Do  you  know  what  it 
is  to  have  a  man  in  your  life  —  a  man  who  is  not  father 
or  brother,  and  yet  is  of  great  importance  to  you;  so 
great  that  you  think  of  him  by  day  and  dream  of  him  by 
night?" 

"Yes,  there  are  two  such  men  in  my  life,"  Sanda  replied; 
and  was  surprised  at  herself  that  she  should  have  said  two. 
More  truly  there  was  only  one  man,  not  counting  her 
father,  who  had  a  place  in  her  thoughts. 

"Two  men!"  Ourieda  echoed,  looking  shocked.  "But 
how  can  there  be  two?  " 

Sanda  felt  herself  blushing  and  ashamed  before  the 
woman  of  another  race.  She  tried  to  explain,  though  it 
was  difficult,  because  she  had  given  the  answer  without 


TWO  ON  THE  ROOF  171 

stopping  to  think:  indeed,  it  had  almost  spoken  itself. 
"I  fancy  I  said  that  because  you  asked  me  about 
dreams,"  she  apologized.  "The  man  who  has  been  my 
hero  all  my  life  —  and  always  will  be,  I  suppose,  though 
he  doesn't  care  for  me  and  thinks  of  me  as  a  child  —  I 
can't  dream  of,  for  some  strange  reason.  He's  seldom 
out  of  my  thoughts  by  day  for  very  long,  I  believe;  but 
the  other  —  I  hardly  know  why  I  mentioned  him!  —  is 
only  a  friend,  and  quite  a  new  friend.  He's  nothing  to 
me  at  all,  really,  though  I'm  interested  in  him  because  of 
the  strange  way  we  met  and  were  thrown  together.  But 
the  odd  thing  is,  I  dream  of  him  —  often." 

"The  women  of  my  people  say  it  is  the  man  you  dream 
of  who  has  touched  your  soul,"  Ourieda  said  thoughtfully. 

"That's  a  very  poetical  idea,  but  I'm  sure  it  isn't 
true!"  Sanda  exclaimed.  "Now  tell  me  about  yourself, 
because  if  Leila  Mabrouka  should  send 

"Yes,  I  am,  oh,  so  anxious  to  tell  you!  But  what  you 
said  about  the  man  of  your  thoughts  and  the  man  of  your 
dreams  was  very  queer,  and  made  me  forget  for  an  instant. 
I  am  glad  you  love  some  one,  for  that  will  help  you  to 
understand  me,  and  by  and  by  you  will  tell  me  more. 
Already  I  can  see  that  you  must  be  almost  as  unhappy 
as  I  am,  because  you  say  the  one  you  care  for  doesn't 
care  for  you.  That  must  be  terrible,  but  you  are  free, 
and  perhaps  some  day  you  can  make  him  care.  As  for 
me,  if  I  am  not  saved  soon,  I  shall  be  married  to  Tahar 
and  lost  forever." 

"But  surely  your  father,  who  loves  you  so  dearly, 
won't  actually  force  you  to  marry  against  your  will?" 

"He  will  expect  me  to  obey,  and  I  shall  have  to  obey 


172  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

or  —  kill  myself.  Rather  that,  only  —  oh,  Sanda,  I  am 
a  coward!  At  the  last  minute  my  courage  might  fail. 
The  one  thing  my  father  would  promise  was  that  I  should 
be  left  as  I  am  till  my  seventeenth  birthday.  That  very 
day  is  fixed  for  the  beginning  of  the  marriage  feast.  We 
shall  have  a  whole  week  of  rejoicing.  Think  of  the  horror 
of  it  for  me !  I  had  a  year  of  hope  when  he  made  the  prom- 
ise. Now  I  have  less  than  six  months.  And  in  all  that 
time  nothing  has  happened." 

Sanda  saw  by  the  girl's  look  and  guessed  by  the  quiver 
of  her  voice  that  she  was  not  speaking  vaguely.  There 
was  something  in  particular  which  she  had  been  praying 
for,  counting  upon  from  day  to  day.  And  that  thing  had 
not  happened. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE   SECRET   LINK 

THE  Hand  of  Fatma  was  gone  from  the  sky.  Ruby  had 
turned  to  amethyst,  amethyst  to  the  gray-blue  of  star 
sapphire,  and  the  red  fire  of  the  dunes  had  burned  out  to 
an  ashen  pallor.  The  change  had  come  suddenly  while 
the  girls  talked;  and  when  Sanda  realized  it,  she  shivered 
a  little,  with  a  touch  of  superstition  she  had  learned  from 
her  two  Irish  aunts.  All  this  cold  whiteness  after  the 
jewelled  blaze  of  colour  was  like  the  death  of  youth  and 
hope.  She  pushed  the  thought  away  hastily,  telling 
herself  it  had  come  only  because  Ourieda  had  threatened 
to  put  an  end  to  her  own  life  rather  than  marry  Tahar; 
yet  it  would  not  go  far  away.  Like  a  vaguely  visible, 
ghostly  shape  it  seemed  to  stand  behind  the  Arab  girl 
as  she  talked  on,  telling  the  story  of  her  childhood  and  a 
love  that  had  grown  with  her  growth. 

There  was  another  cousin,  it  appeared,  the  son  of  her 
mother's  sister.  He  was  all  Spanish.  There  was  not  a 
drop  of  Arab  blood  in  his  veins,  unless  it  came  through 
Saracen  ancestors  in  the  days  when  Moorish  kings  reigned 
over  Andalusia. 

"You  know,  now  you've  been  with  us  even  these  few 
days,"  Ourieda  said,  "that  the  harem  of  an  Arab  Cald 
isn't  a  nest  of  wives,  as  people  in  Europe  who  have  never 

173 


174  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

seen  one  suppose!  My  father  has  laughed  when  he  told 
me  Christians  believed  that.  Now,  Aunt  Mabrouka 
and  I  and  our  servants  are  the  only  women  in  my  father's 
harem;  but  when  I  was  a  little  girl,  before  my  mother 
died  —  I  can  just  remember  her  —  besides  my  mother 
herself  there  was  her  sister,  whose  Spanish  husband  had 
been  drowned  at  sea.  An  Arab  man  thinks  it  a  disgrace 
if  any  women  related  even  distantly  to  him  or  his  wife 
are  thrown  on  the  world  to  make  their  own  living.  It 
could  never  happen  with  an  Arab  woman  if  she  were 
respectable.  And  even  though  my  mother's  sister  was 
Spanish  and  a  Christian,  my  father  offered  her  and  her 
boy  a  home.  Already  his  own  sister,  Aunt  Mabrouka, 
had  come  to  stay  with  us,  and  had  brought  her  son  Tahar. 
Neither  of  the  boys  lived  in  the  harem  of  course,  for  they 
were  old  enough  to  be  in  the  men's  part  of  the  house,  and 
have  men  for  their  servants;  but  they  came  every  day  to 
see  their  mothers.  Even  then,  though  I  was  a  tiny  child, 
I  hated  Tahar  —  and  loved  Manoel  Valdez.  Tahar 
had  had  smallpox,  and  looked  just  as  he  looks  now,  only 
worse,  because  he  has  a  bad  chin  that  his  beard  hides; 
and  Manoel  was  handsome.  Oh,  you  can't  imagine  how 
handsome  Manoel  was!  He  was  like  the  ideal  all  girls, 
even  Arab  girls,  must  dream  of,  I  think.  I  can  see  him 
now  —  as  plainly  as  I  see  you  in  this  sad,  pale  light  that 
comes  up  from  the  desert  at  night." 

"Is  it  long  since  you  parted?"  Sanda  asked  quickly, 
to  put  away  that  persistent  thought  of  trouble. 

"We  parted  more  than  once,  because  when  our  two 
mothers  died,  one  after  another,  of  the  same  sickness  — 
typhoid  fever  —  Manoel  was  sent  away  to  school.     He's 


THE  SECRET  LINK  175 

nine  years  older  than  I  am  —  twenty-five  now;  a  little 
more  than  three  years  younger  than  Tahar.  My  father 
sent  him  to  the  university  in  Algiers,  because,  you  see, 
he  was  Christian  —  or,  rather,  he  was  nothing  at  all  then; 
he  had  not  settled  to  any  belief.  Tahar  was  like  Aunt 
Mabrouka,  very  religious,  and  did  not  care  much  to 
study,  except  the  Koran  and  a  little  French.  He  went 
once  to  Paris,  but  he  didn't  stay  long.  He  said  he  was 
homesick.  Oh,  he  is  clever  in  his  way!  He  has  known 
how  to  make  himself  necessary  to  my  father." 

"And  Manoel  Valdez?"  asked  Sanda. 

"  My  father  loved  him  when  he  was  a  boy,  because  he 
was  of  the  same  blood  as  my  mother.  Although  Aunt 
Mabrouka  was  jealous  even  then  —  for  she  ruled  in  the 
house  after  my  mother's  death  —  she  couldn't  prejudice 
my  father's  mind  against  Manoel,  hard  as  she  tried. 
Manoel  was  free  to  come  here  when  he  liked,  for  his  holi- 
days, or  to  the  douar  if  we  were  there;  and  he  loved  life 
under  the  great  tent.  He  had  a  wonderful  voice,  and  he 
could  sing  our  Arab  songs  as  no  one  else  ever  could.  Father 
wished  him  to  be  a  lawyer,  and  gave  money  for  his 
education,  because  we  Arabs  often  need  lawyers  who 
understand  us.  But  Manoel  cared  more  for  music  than 
anything  else  —  except  for  me.  When  I  was  eight  and  he 
was  seventeen  I  told  him  I  meant  to  marry  him  when  I 
grew  up,  and  he  said  he  would  wait  for  me.  I  suppose 
he  was  only  joking  then;  but  the  thought  of  him  and  the 
love  of  him  in  my  heart  made  me  begin  to  grow  into  a 
woman  sooner  than  if  I  had  had  only  the  thoughts  of  a 
child.  It  was  like  the  sun  opening  a  flower  bud.  When 
he  was  away  I  felt  hardly  alive.  When  he  came  back 


176  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

from  Spain  to  our  house  or  to  our  tent  in  the  douar  I 
lived  —  lived  every  minute !  It  was  three  years  ago,  when 
I  was  thirteen,  that  he  began  to  love  me  as  a  woman. 
I  shall  never  forget  the  day  he  told  me !  I  was  not  hadjaba 
yet.  Do  you  know  what  that  means?  I  was  considered 
to  be  a  child  still,  and  I  could  go  out  with  my  aunt  to  the 
baths,  or  with  one  of  our  servants,  unveiled.  I  was  not 
shut  up  in  the  house  as  I  am  now.  But  in  my  heart  I  was 
a  woman,  because  of  Manoel.  And  when  he  came  home 
after  nearly  a  year  in  Seville  and  other  parts  of  Spain  he 
felt  and  saw  the  difference  in  me.  We  were  in  the  douar, 
and  life  was  free  and  beautiful.  For  three  months  Manoel 
and  I  kept  our  secret.  He  said  he  would  do  anything  to 
have  me  for  his  wife.  He  would  even  become  Moham- 
medan, since  religion  meant  little  to  him,  and  love  every- 
thing. He  had  no  money  of  his  own,  but  he  had  been 
told  that  he  could  make  a  fortune  with  his  voice,  singing 
in  opera,  and  he  had  been  taking  lessons  without  telling 
my  father.  A  Frenchman  —  is  "impresario"  the  right 
word?  —  was  having  his  voice  trained,  and  by  and  by 
Manoel  would  pay  him  back  out  of  his  earnings.  We 
used  to  call  ourselves  "engaged,"  as  girls  and  men  in 
Europe  are  engaged  to  each  other  in  secret.  But  one 
day,  soon  after  my  thirteenth  birthday,  Aunt  Mabrouka, 
who  must  have  begun  to  suspect  and  spy  on  us,  overheard 
us  talking.  She  told  my  father.  At  first  he  wouldn't 
believe  her,  but  he  surprised  me  into  confessing.  I  should 
never  have  been  so  stupid,  only,  from  what  he  said,  I 
thought  he  already  knew  everything.  After  all,  it  was  so 
little!  Just  words  of  love,  and  some  dear  kisses!  He 
suspected  there  was  more;  and  if  I  hadn't  made  him 


THE  SECRET  LINK  177 

understand,  he  might  have  killed  Manoel,  and  me,  too. 
But  even  as  it  was,  my  father  and  Aunt  Mabrouka  hurried 
me  from  the  douar  in  the  night,  before  Manoel  knew  that 
anything  had  happened.  I  was  brought  here;  and  never 
since  have  I  been  outside  this  garden  without  a  veil. 
It  was  months  before  I  went  out  at  all.  And  Manoel 
was  sent  away,  cursed  by  my  father  for  ingratitude  and 
treachery,  warned  never  to  come  again  near  Djazerta 
or  the  douar  as  long  as  he  lived,  unless  he  wished  for  my 
death  as  well  as  his." 

"Have  you  never  seen  him  since?"  Sanda  asked,  her 
heart  beating  fast  with  the  rush  of  the  story  as  Ourieda 
had  told  it. 

"Yes,  he  has  seen  me,  and  I  have  seen  him.  But  we 
have  not  spoken,  except  in  letters.  For  a  whole  year  I 
heard  nothing.  Yet  I  never  lost  faith.  I  seemed  to  feel 
Manoel  thinking  of  me,  calling  me,  far  away  across  the 
desert.  I  knew  that  we  should  meet  in  life  or  death. 
At  last,  one  Friday  two  years  ago  —  Friday,  you  know,  is 
the  women's  day  for  visiting  the  graves  of  loved  ones  —  I 
saw  Manoel.  He  was  dressed  like  a  beggar.  His  face  was 
stained  dark  brown,  and  nearly  hidden  by  the  hood  of  a 
ragged  burnous.  But  I  recognized  the  eyes.  They  looked 
into  mine.  I  realized  that  he  must  have  been  waiting 
for  me  to  pass  with  Aunt  Mabrouka.  He  knew  of  course 
that  whenever  possible  we  went  on  Friday  to  the  cemetery. 
I  almost  fainted  with  joy;  but  Allah  gave  me  presence  of 
mind,  and  strength  to  hide  my  feelings.  You  have 
noticed  how  sharp  Aunt  Mabrouka  is.  It's  the  great 
ambition  of  her  life  to  see  the  daughter  of  the  Agha  married 
to  her  son.  Never  for  one  moment  has  she  trusted  me 


178  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

since  she  spied  out  the  truth  about  Manoel.  That  Fri- 
day, though,  I  thwarted  her.  Oh,  it  was  good  to  know 
that  Manoel  was  near !  I  hardly  dared  to  hope  for  more 
than  just  seeing  him;  but  he  remembered  that  my  old 
nurse  had  a  grandson  in  my  father's  goum,  a  fine  rider, 
who  first  taught  him  —  Manoel  —  to  sit  on  a  horse. 
Through  my  nurse  and  Ali  ben  Sliman  I  got  letters  from 
Manoel.  He  told  me  he  had  begun  to  sing  in  opera, 
and  that  if  I  would  wait  for  him  two  —  or  at  most  three  — 
years,  he  would  have  enough  money  saved  to  give  me  a 
life  in  Europe  worthy  of  a  prince's  daughter,  such  as  I 
am.  He  would  organize  some  plan  to  steal  me  from  home, 
if  there  were  no  chance  of  winning  my  father's  consent, 
and  he  was  sure  it  could  be  done  with  great  bribes  for 
many  people,  and  relays  of  Maharis  and  horses  to  get  us 
through  the  dune-country.  I  sent  word  that  I  would 
wait  for  him  three  years,  all  the  years  of  my  life!  But 
that  was  before  I  knew  my  father  meant  me  to  marry 
Tahar. 

"Not  long  after  Manoel  came  to  stay  in  Djazerta, 
disguised  as  a  wandering  beggar  of  Touggourt,  my  father 
told  me  what  was  in  his  mind.  I  feel  sure  Aunt  Mabrouka 
suspected  from  my  happier  looks  that  I  was  hearing  from 
Manoel,  for  she  persuaded  my  father  that  I  was  ill.  She 
shut  me  up  and  gave  me  medicine;  and  I  was  so  afraid 
Manoel  might  be  discovered  and  murdered,  that  I  sent 
him  word  to  go  away  at  once,  not  even  to  write  me  again. 
He  obeyed  for  my  sake,  not  knowing  what  might  happen 
to  me  if  he  refused,  but  by  word  of  mouth  came  the  mes- 
sage that  he  would  always  be  working  for  our  happiness. 
Well  I  guessed  what  he  meant !  Yet  when  my  father  told 


THE  SECRET  LINK  179 

me  about  Tahar,  all  my  faith  in  Manoel  could  not  keep 
me  brave.  My  father  is  splendid,  but  he  will  stop  at 
nothing  with  those  who  go  against  him.  At  first  he  said 
I  must  be  married  when  I  was  sixteen,  but  I  reminded  him 
that  seventeen  was  my  mother's  age  when  he  took  her; 
and  I  begged  him,  "for  luck,"  to  let  me  wait.  I  dared 
not  warn  Manoel,  lest  they  should  have  laid  a  trap,  ex- 
pecting me  to  write  him  about  my  marriage.  I  waited 
for  months,  and  then  it  was  too  late,  for  Ali  ben  SI i man 
was  away.  I  dared  trust  no  one  else;  and  so  it  is  not 
yet  a  year  ago  that  I  sent  a  letter  to  an  old  address 
Manoel  had  left  with  Ali.  I  told  him  all  that  had  hap- 
pened, and  I  said,  if  I  were  to  be  saved  it  must  be  before 
my  seventeenth  birthday,  the  end  of  September.  After 
that  I  should  be  dead  —  or  else  Tahar's  wife.  Since 
then,  not  hearing,  I  have  sent  two  more  letters  to  the 
same  address,  for  I  have  no  other.  But  no  answer  has 
come.  Now  Ali  has  died  of  fever,  and  I  can  never  write 
to  Manoel  again  unless  —  unless " 

"Unless  what? "  breathed  Sanda. 

"Unless  you  can  manage  to  help  me.  Would  you,  if 
you  could?" 

"Yes,"  answered  the  other  girl,  without  hesitating. 
"  I'm  a  guest  in  the  Agha's  house,  and  I've  eaten  his  salt, 
so  it's  hateful  to  work  against  him.  But,  some  day,  surely 
he'll  be  thankful  to  a  friend  who  saves  you  from  Si  Tahar. 
I'll  do  anything  I  can.  Yet  I'm  only  a  girl  like  yourself. 
What  is  there  I  can  do?  Have  you  thought?  " 

"  // 1  have  thought !"  echoed  Ourieda.  "  I  have  thought 
of  nothing  else,  for  weeks  and  weeks,  long  before  you  came. 
I  begged  my  father  to  find  me  a  companion  of  my  own 


180  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

age,  not  an  Arab  girl,  but  a  European,  to  teach  me  things 
and  make  me  clever  like  my  mother.  He  believed  I 
was  pining  with  ennui;  and  because  he  had  put  real  hap- 
piness out  of  my  life,  he  was  willing  to  console  me  as  well 
as  he  could  in  some  easy  way.  In  spite  of  Aunt  Mabrouka, 
who  may  have  guessed  what  was  in  my  mind,  he  trusts 
you  completely,  because  you  are  your  father's  daughter." 

"Ah,  that's  the  dreadful  part !  To  betray  such  a  trust ! " 
exclaimed  Sanda. 

"But  after  all,  I  am  going  to  ask  so  little  of  you,  not  a 
hard  thing  at  all,"  Ourieda  pleaded,  frightened  at  the 
effect  of  her  own  words.  "It  is  a  thing  only  a  trusted 
guest,  a  woman  of  the  Roumia,  could  possibly  do,  yet  it's 
very  simple.  And  when  the  time  comes  to  do  it,  you 
need  only  shut  your  eyes." 

"Tell  me  what  you  mean,"  said  Sanda  anxiously. 

"  Every  letter  you  write  —  not  to  your  father,  because 
he  might  ask  questions,  but  to  a  friend  —  leave  the 
envelope  open,  and  turn  your  back,  or  go  out  of  the  room. 
Then  don't  look  into  the  letter  again,  or  notice  if  it  seems 
thicker  than  before,  but  fasten  it  up  tightly  and  seal  the 
envelope  with  wax.  Will  you  do  that?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Sanda,  rather  miserably.  "To  save  you 
I  will  do  that." 

"You  have  friends  in  France  who  would  post  a  letter 
if  they  found  it  enclosed  in  one  of  yours,  without  explana- 
tions?" 

"I  have  friends  who  would  do  that,  perhaps,  but  to 
make  it  more  sure  I  will  explain.  It  would  not  save  my 
conscience  to  let  you  slip  a  letter  into  an  open  envelope, 
and  pretend  to  myself  that  I  knew  nothing  about  it; 


THE  SECRET  LINK  181 

because  I  would  know,  and  I  think  I'd  almost  rather  be 
hypocritical  with  other  people  than  with  myself." 

"I  told  you,"  exclaimed  Ourieda,  "that  Roumia  girls 
were  different  from  us  even  in  their  secret  thoughts! 
But  you  will  love  me,  won't  you,  although  you  think  I  am 
stealthy  and  sly?  I  need  your  love  and  help!" 

"I  love  you,  or  I  shouldn't  have  promised  what  I  have 
just  promised  now,"  Sanda  assured  her. 

"But  if  there  were  still  more  —  something  harder  and 
more  dangerous  —  would  you  love  me  enough  to  do  that 
thing  too?" 

"  Do  you  mean  something  in  particular  that  you  have  in 
your  mind,  or " 

"  Yes,  oh,  yes !     I  mean  something  in  particular." 

"  Will  you  tell  me  what  it  is?  " 

"I  am  half  afraid." 

"Don't  be  afraid.     Tell  me!" 

"Hush!"  whispered  Ourieda.  "Don't  you  hear  some 
one  on  the  stairs  —  coming  up  softly?  I  must  tell  you 
another  time.  Laugh!  Laugh  out  aloud!  Call  to  the 
doves!" 

The  two  girls  began  to  chatter  together  like  children. 
And  their  young  voices  tinkling  out  in  laughter  sounded 
pitifully  small  in  the  immensity  of  the  night-bleached 
desert. 

Far  away  in  the  north  where  colonist  farmers  had  long 
ago  conquered  the  desert  there  was  music  that  evening 
at  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  headquarters  of  the  Foreign  Legion. 
The  soul  of  the  Legion  was  speaking  in  its  tragic-sweet 
voice,  and  the  Place  Carnot  was  full  of  soldiers  sauntering 


182  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

singly  or  in  pairs,  mostly  silent,  as  if  to  hear  their  own 
heart-secrets  cried  aloud  by  tell-tale  'cellos  and  flutes  and 
violins. 

The  townsfolk  were  there,  too;  and  when  the  band 
played  some  selection  especially  to  their  liking  they  buzzed 
approval.  It  was  only  the  Legionnaires  who  talked  little, 
and  in  tones  almost  humbly  suppressed.  Once,  years  ago, 
they  had  violently  asserted  their  right  to  promenade  the 
Place  Carnot,  and  enjoy  the  music  of  their  own  famous 
band,  when  local  authority  would  insolently  have  ban- 
ished them;  but  now  the  boon  was  won,  they  were  subdued 
in  manner,  as  if  they  had  never  smashed  chairs  and  wrecked 
bandstand  in  fierce  protest  against  bourgeois  tyranny. 
Immaculate  in  every  detail  of  their  uniform  as  though 
each  man  had  his  own  servant,  these  soldiers  who  spent 
half  their  so-called  leisure  in  scrubbing  clothes,  polishing 
steel  and  brass,  and  varnishing  leather,  had  nevertheless 
a  piteously  dejected  bearing  whenever  they  passed  pretty, 
well-dressed  young  women.  They  knew  that,  whatever 
they  might  once  have  been,  as  Foreign  Legion  men  on 
pay  of  five  centimes  a  day  they  were  in  the  eyes  of  Bel- 
Abbes  girls  hopeless  ineligibles,  poverty-stricken  social 
outcasts,  the  black  sheep  of  the  world.  It  was  to  vie  with 
each  other  and  to  make  the  Legion  far  outshine  Chasseurs 
and  Spahis  that  they  sacrificed  two  thirds  of  their  spare 
time  in  the  cause  of  smartness,  not  because  even  the  hand- 
somest and  youngest  cherished  any  hope  of  catching 
a  woman's  approving  eye. 

Just  at  the  moment,  however,  there  was  an  exception 
to  the  depressing  rule.  The  prettiest  girls,  French, 
Spanish,  and  Algerian-born,  all  condescended  to  glance 


THE  SECRET  LINK  183 

at  the  bleu  who  had  "knocked  out"  the  former  champion 
of  the  Legion,  and,  taking  his  place  in  the  match  with  the 
Marseillais,  had  kept  the  championship  for  the  First 
Regiment  EtrangSr.  Since  the  day  more  than  a  week  ago 
when  the  barrack-yard  of  the  Legion  had  been  the  scene 
of  the  great  fight  —  officers  looking  on  in  the  front  ranks 
of  the  invited  crowd,  and  soldiers  hanging  out  of  dormi- 
tory windows  —  every  one  in  Sidi-bel-Abbes  had  learned 
to  know  the  hero  by  sight;  and  a  blackened  eye,  a  bruised 
cheek-bone,  and  a  swelled  lip  (the  unbecoming  badges 
of  his  triumph)  made  recognition  easy.  But  the  Legion 
was  proud  of  St.  George.  Not  a  man,  least  of  all  Four 
Eyes,  grudged  him  his  success,  such  "luck"  as  had  never 
fallen  to  any  mere  recruit  within  the  memory  of  the  oldest 
Legionnaires,  unless  in  the  battlefield,  where  all  are  equal. 

Max  realized  fully  what  this  "luck"  had  done  for  him, 
and  was  aware  that  eyes  turned  his  way;  but,  far  from 
being  proud,  he  was  half-ashamed  of  his  conspicuousness, 
fearing  that  Colonel  DeLisle  might  disapprove.  Also, 
he  knew  that  the  small,  brief  blaze  of  his  notoriety  would 
die  out  like  the  flame  of  a  candle.  A  week  or  two  more 
and  the  "little  tin  god"  would  go  down  off  his  wheels. 
If  he  meant  to  be  somebody  hi  the  Legion  he  would  have 
to  work  as  he  had  never  worked  in  all  his  life. 

With  him  in  the  Place  Carnot  was  the  Spaniard  who 
had  begged  for  his  civilian  clothes.  They  were  in  the 
same  company  and  of  the  same  age.  From  the  first 
glance  (given  and  taken  when  one  man  was  a  recruit  and 
the  other  did  not  yet  dream  of  becoming  one)  something 
had  drawn  the  two  together.  Then  had  come  the  in- 
cident of  the  clothing;  and  Max  had  felt  himself  an  un- 


184  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

willing  partner  in  the  other's  secret.  Later,  without 
exchanging  confidences  (since  "ask  no  questions,  I'll 
tell  you  no  lies,"  is  a  good  general  rule  in  the  Legion), 
they  drifted  into  a  tacit  kind  of  comradeship,  Max  ad- 
miring the  Spaniard,  the  Spaniard  trusting  Max. 

To-night  they  walked  together  in  silence,  or  speaking 
seldom,  like  the  other  Legionnaires,  and  listening  to  the 
music.  Suddenly  the  Spaniard  stopped,  muttering  some 
word  under  his  breath,  and  Max  saw  through  the  dusk 
that  the  olive  face  had  gone  ashy  pale.  "What's  the 
matter,  Garcia?  Are  you  ill?  "  he  asked. 

The  other  did  not  answer.  He  stood  stock  still,  star- 
ing almost  stupidly  straight  before  him. 

Max  linked  an  arm  in  his.  "  What 's  wrong?  Garcia! 
What's  wrong  with  you?  "  he  repeated. 

The  Spaniard  started.  "I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  stam- 
mered, dazed.  "  I  didn't  realize  you  were  —  speaking 
—  to  me." 

Instantly  Max  guessed  that  "Juan  Garcia,"  the  name 
appearing  with  the  "ni(mero  matricule"  over  the  bed  of 
le  bleu,  was  as  new  as  his  place  in  the  Legion,  and 
as  fictitious  as  the  alleged  profession  of  garcon  d'Jiotel 
which  accounted  cleverly  for  the  recruit's  stained  evening 
clothes. 

"I  only  asked  you  what  was  wrong,  what  made  you 
stop  so  suddenly?  "  Max  explained. 

"It  was  that  thing  the  band  is  playing  now,"  said  the 
Spaniard.  "Strange  they  should  have  it  here  already! 
It  is  out  of  the  new  African  opera  by  Saltenet,  "La  Nailia," 
produced  for  the  first  time  ten  days  ago  —  a  trial  per- 
formance at  Marseilles,  and  on  now  at  the  Opera  Comique 


THE  SECRET  LINK  185 

in  Paris.  Good  heavens!  Another  world,  and  yet  these 
extraordinary  men  are  playing  that  song  here  already  — 
my  song!" 

"  Your  song?  "  involuntarily  Max  echoed  the  words. 

"My  song.  If  a  certain  letter  hadn't  come  to  me  on 
the  night  of  the  last  rehearsal  but  one,  and  if  we  hadn't 
been  in  Marseilles,  rehearsing,  I  shouldn't  be  here  to- 
night. I  should  be  in  Paris,  perhaps  coming  on  to  the 
stage  at  this  moment,  where  I  suppose  my  understudy  is 
grimacing  like  the  conceited  monkey  he  is." 

"  By  jove ! "  was  all  that  Max  could  find  to  say.  But  he 
put  several  emotions  into  the  two  words:  astonishment, 
warm  sympathy,  and  some  sort  of  friendly  understanding. 

"You  wonder  why  I  tell  you  this?"  Garcia  challenged 
him. 

Max  answered  quietly:  "No,  I  don't  wonder.  Per- 
haps you  feel  it  does  you  good  to  speak.  It's  strange 
music !  —  stirs  one  up,  somehow  —  makes  one  think  of 
things.  And  I  suppose  you  trust  me?  You  can.  But 
don't  go  any  farther  unless  you're  sure  you  want  to." 

"  I  do  want  to ! "  burst  out  the  Spaniard.  "  I've  wanted 
to  from  the  first  —  since  you  helped  me  about  the  clothes. 
Only  you're  a  reserved  fellow  yourself.  I  didn't  care  to 
have  you  think  me  a  gusher.  You  guessed  why  I  begged 
for  the  clothes?" 

"  I  didn't  let  myself  dwell  on  it  too  much." 

"You  must  have  guessed.  Of  course  I  mean  to  desert 
the  first  chance  I  get." 

"  It's  a  beastly  risk.  Did  you  see  that  awful  photograph 
the  colonel  told  the  non-coms  to  pass  around  for  us  to 
look  at,  as  a  warning  against  desertion?" 


186  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

"The  poor  wretch  they  found  in  the  desert,  across  the 
Moroccan  border,  the  man  who  ran  away  from  Bel  Abbes 
before  we  came?  Yes,  I  saw  the  picture.  Ghastly !  And 
to  think  it's  the  women  who  mutilate  men  like  that! 
But  I  shan't  try  to  escape  by  way  of  Morocco.  The 
danger  I'll  run  is  only  from  being  caught  and  sent  to 
the  penal  battalion  —  the  awful  'Batt  d'Aff.'  It's  a  bad 
enough  danger,  for  I  might  as  well  be  dead  as  in  prison 
—  better,  for  I'd  be  out  of  misery.  But  I  must  run 
the  risk.  I  enlisted  in  the  Legion  for  its  protection 
in  getting  to  Africa,  because  I  was  in  danger  of  arrest. 
And  you  know  the  Legion,  once  it's  got  a  man,  won't 
give  him  up  to  the  police  unless  he's  a  murderer.  I'm 
not  that,  though  I  came  near  it.  Even  while  I  signed 
for  five  years'  service,  I  knew  I  should  have  to  desert  the 
minute  I  could  hope  to  get  away.  I  shall  wait  now  till 
the  big  march  begins,  and  get  as  far  south  as  the  rest  of 
you  go,  in  my  direction  —  the  direction  I  want.  Then  I 
shall  cut  away." 

"God  help  you!"  said  Max. 

"  Maybe  He  will,  though  I'm  a  man  of  no  religion.  Is 
love  the  next  best  thing?  Everything  I've  done  so  far, 
and  what  I  have  to  do,  is  for  love.  Does  that  make  you 
think  me  a  fool?" 

"No." 

"I  have  to  save  a  girl  from  being  given  to  a  man  who 
isn't  fit  to  kiss  her  little  embroidered  shoes  —  bless  them ! 
To  save  her  from  him  —  or  from  suicide.  The  letter 
told  me  she  would  rather  die  than  marry  him.  That's 
why  I'm  not  in  Paris  to-night.  There'd  been  other 
letters  before;  she  said  in  the  one  which  reached  me  at 


THE  SECRET  LINK  187 

the  theatre  —  reached  me  in  the  midst  of  rehearsal — 
thank  God  —  if  there  is  a  God  —  I  still  have  till  the  end 
of  September.  The  crisis  won't  come  till  then,  on  her 
seventeenth  birthday.  But  what  is  five  months  and  a  half 
to  a  man  handicapped  as  I  am?  Caught  in  a  trap,  and 
with  hardly  any  money,  just  when  I  had  a  fortune  almost 
in  my  grasp!" 

"I  can  lend  you  a  little,"  said  Max.  "I've  a  few 
hundred  dollars  left."  He  laughed.  "It  seems  a  lot 
here!  These  poor  chaps  look  on  me  as  a  millionaire,  a 
sort  of  prince,  because  I've  got  something  behind  the 
daily  five  centimes  —  some  dollars  to  buy  decent  tobacco 
for  my  friends  and  myself,  and  pay  fellows  to  do  my  wash- 
ing and  so  on  —  fellows  wild  with  joy  to  do  it !  Jove ! 
It  makes  me  feel  a  brute  to  think  what  a  few  sous  mean 
to  them,  gentlemen,  some  of  'em,  who've  lived  a  more 
luxurious  life  than  I  have  —  and  — 

"Maybe  that's  why  they're  here:  because  they  lived 
too  luxuriously  —  on  other  people's  money.  Tell  me, 
St.  George,  did  you  ever  hear  the  name  of  Manb'el  Valdez  ?  " 

Max  thought  for  an  instant.  "Valdez?  Let  me  see 
.  .  .  how  ...  I  know,  a  singer!  He  sang  last 
winter  in  New  York,  in  something  or  other,  a  small  part, 
and  I  wasn't  there,  but  I  saw  great  notices.  I  remember 
now.  Why,  you're  — 

"Yes.  You're  right.  Don't  be  afraid  to  speak.  I 
asked  for  it." 

"  Then  you  are  - 

"Manoel  Valdez.  Saltenet,  the  man  who  wrote  'La 
Nailia,'  wrote  the  man's  part  for  me,  because  he  thought 
I  could  sing  it,  and  because  I  understand  Arab  music  as 


188  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

maybe  no  other  European  does.  I  was  brought  up  in  the 
desert.  The  girl  I  love  is  a  daughter  of  the  desert.  God! 
How  that  music  they're  playing  makes  me  hear  her  call 
me,  far  away  from  behind  her  ocean  of  dunes!  There's 
a  secret  link  binding  our  souls  together.  Nothing  can 
keep  them  apart.  Saltenet  was  my  benefactor.  He  has 
done  everything  for  me.  He  would  have  made  my  for- 
tune—  after  I'd  made  his;  but  that's  human  nature! 
And  twelve  nights  ago  I  nearly  killed  him  because  he 
wouldn't  let  me  go  when  that  girl  called  —  my  desert 
princess !  He  vowed  he'd  have  me  arrested  —  anything 
to  stop  me.  And  he  tried  to  hold  me  by  force.  I  knocked 
him  down  in  his  own  private  room  at  the  theatre  where 
we  were  rehearsing,  and  then  I  had  to  make  sure  he  wasn't 
dead,  for  his  blood  was  on  my  hands,  my  sleeves,  my  shirt 
front.  It  was  only  concussion  of  the  brain,  but  I  hoped 
it  would  keep  him  still,  until  I'd  got  well  away.  That 
afternoon  an  officer  I  knew  had  happened  to  mention 
before  me  that  a  lot  of  men  were  being  shipped  off  to  Oran 
for  the  Foreign  Legion.  I  remembered.  It  was  as  if 
some  voice  reminded  me.  Africa  was  my  goal,  but  I'd 
next  to  no  money.  I  thought,  why  shouldn't  France 
pay?  Well,  here  I  am!  Now  you  know  why  I  must 
desert.  Wouldn't  you  do  the  same  in  my  place?  Have 
you  got  it  in  you,  I  wonder,  to  sacrifice  everything  in  life 
for  a  woman?" 

Max  thought  for  a  moment  before  risking  a  reply. 
Then  he  answered  slowly :  "  I  —  almost  believe  I  have. 
But  who  knows?" 

"Some  day  you  will  know,"  said  Manoel  Valdez,  look- 
ing away  toward  the  desert. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  BEETLE 

WHEN  Max  had  served  four  months  in  the  Foreign  Legion 
he  felt  older  by  four  years.  He  looked  older,  too.  There 
were  faintly  sketched  lines  round  his  mouth  and  eyes, 
and  that  indefinable  expression  which  lies  deep  down  in 
eyes  which  have  seen  life  and  death  at  grip:  a  Legion 
look. 

In  some  ways  he  had  been  a  boy  when  he  took  his  sudden 
resolve  in  the  Salle  d'Honneur  to  prove  what  the  Legion 
could  do  for  a  nature  he  himself  doubted.  Now  he  was 
no  longer  a  boy.  He  realized  that,  though  he  had  never 
found  time  to  study  the  success  of  his  experiment,  and 
had  no  idea  that  it  was  being  studied  day  after  day  by  his 
colonel.  Had  he  guessed,  some  dark  hours  might  have 
been  brightened  by  gleams  of  hope,  for  in  spite  of  his  luck 
in  the  Legion  there  were  times  when  Max  felt  himself 
abandoned,  a  creature  of  as  small  consequence  to  any 
heart  on  earth  as  a  half-drowned  fly.  A  more  conceited 
man  would  have  been  happier,  but  Max  had  not  joined 
the  Legion  with  the  object  of  finding  happiness,  and  one 
who  was  watching  believed  that  it  would  be  good  for 
him  to  wait. 

Max  and  Manoel  Valdez  (alias  Garcia)  had  looked  for- 
ward to  the  great  march,  already  vaguely  talked  of  when 

189 


190  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

they  joined.  But  it  had  not  been  a  march  for  marching's 
sake:  its  real  purpose  was  more  grave.  A  band  of  Arab 
thieves  and  murderers  on  the  border  of  the  M'zab  country 
had  to  be  caught  and  punished.  No  recruits  were  taken : 
disappointment  for  Max  and  despair  for  Valdez.  He 
had  hoped  everything  from  that  chance,  and,  in  his  rage 
at  losing  it,  made  a  dash  for  liberty  from  Sidi-bel-Abbes. 
He  got  no  farther  than  the  outskirts,  the  forbidden 
Village  Negre,  where  he  risked  a  night  visit  in  search  of 
the  man  bribed  to  hide  a  certain  precious  bundle.  For- 
tunately he  was  arrested  before  securing  it,  for  had  he 
been  trapped  with  civilian  clothes  not  even  his  marvellous 
voice  (the  talk  of  the  garrison  since  it  had  been  heard  in 
the  soldier's  theatre)  could  have  saved  him  from  the 
fate  of  caught  deserters:  the  penal  battalion  for  months, 
if  not  a  year;  death,  perhaps,  from  fever  or  hardship.  As  it 
was,  he  escaped  with  the  penalty  for  a  night  visit  to  the 
Arab  quarter:  eight  days  cellule.  But  the  clothes  were  safe. 
He  would  try  again.  Nothing  on  earth,  he  said,  should 
keep  him  from  trying  again;  because  he  might  as  well  be 
a  "Zephir"  in  the  dreaded  "Batt  d'Aff,"  if  he  could  not 
answer  the  cry  for  help  he  seemed  always  to  hear  from 
across  the  desert. 

Since  his  first  failure  and  imprisonment  nearly  four 
months  had  passed,  and  he  had  tried  again  and  failed  in 
the  same  way.  The  second  time  his  sentence  was  twice 
as  long;  but  before  it  was  over  the  medecin  major  sent 
him  into  hospital.  He  came  out  emaciated,  sullen,  dan- 
gerous, caring  for  nothing,  not  even  to  sing.  Max  yearned 
over  him,  but  could  do  nothing  except  say,  "  It  isn't  too 
late  yet.  Maybe,  if  we  brace  up,  we'll  be  taken  on  the  big 


THE  BEETLE  191 

march  that  they  talk  of  for  the  first  of  September.     Even 
then  there'll  be  time." 

He  said  "  we, "  because  it  was  more  comforting  to  Valdez 
that  their  names  should  be  bracketed  together  as  friends; 
but  as  Legionnaires  they  were  already  far  apart.  Max 
had  never  been  censured,  had  never  seen  the  inside  of 
the  prison  building  (that  low-roofed,  sinister  building 
that  runs  along  the  walls  of  the  barrack-yard).  He  was 
in  the  school  of  corporals.  Soon  he  would  wear  on  his 
blue  sleeve  the  coveted  red  woollen  stripe.  Garcia,  on 
the  contrary,  was  constantly  falling  into  trouble.  He  had 
even  drunk  too  much,  once  or  twice,  in  the  hope  of  drown- 
ing trouble,  as  Legionnaires  do.  The  September  march 
to  the  south  was  ostensibly  for  road-laying;  but  there 
was  again  a  rumour  of  other  important  work  to  be  done. 
The  great  secret  society  of  the  Senussi  threatened  trouble 
through  a  new  leader  who  had  arisen,  a  young  man  of 
the  far  south  called  the  "Deliverer."  And  when  there 
was  prospect  of  fighting  in  the  desert  or  elsewhere  for 
the  Legion,  recruits  —  even  those  who  had  served,  for 
six  months  —  were  seldom  taken  if  a  long  list  of  black 
marks  stood  against  their  names.  Max  feared  that  there 
was  little  hope  for  Valdez,  though  he  meant  to  do  what 
he  could  to  help.  And  he  found  it  strange  that  he,  a  born 
soldier  as  he  knew  himself  to  be,  should  think  of  tacitly 
aiding  another  to  desert,  no  matter  on  what  pretext.  At 
home  in  the  same  position  it  could  not  have  been  so; 
but  in  the  Foreign  Legion  recruits  talked  freely,  even  be- 
fore old  Legionnaires  to  whom  the  Legion  was  mother 
and  father  and  country.  There  was  no  fear  of  betrayal. 
The  whole  point  of  view  seemed  different.  If  a  man  felt 


192  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

that  he  had  borne  all  he  could,  and  was  desperate  enough 
to  risk  death  by  starvation  or  worse,  why  let  him  go  with 
his  comrades'  blessing  —  and  his  blood  on  his  own  head! 
If  he  had  money  he  might  get  through.  If  not,  he  was 
lost;  but  that,  too,  was  his  own  business. 

March  was  bitterly  cold  in  wind-swept  Sidi-bel-Abbes. 
April  was  mild;  May  warm;  June  hot;  July  and  August  a 
furnace,  but  Legionnaires  drank  no  less  of  the  heavy,  red 
Algerian  wine  than  before  the  summer  heat  engulfed  them. 
Max  had  heard  men  say  jokingly  or  solemnly  of  each 
other,  "He  has  the  cqfard."  Vaguely  he  knew  that 
cafard  was  French  for  beetle,  or  cockroach;  that  soldiers 
who  habitually  mixed  absinthe  and  other  strong  drinks 
with  their  cheap  but  beloved  litre  were  often  affected  with 
a  strange  madness  which  betrayed  itself  in  weird  ways, 
and  that  this  special  madness  was  familiarly  named  le 
cafard.  When  the  hot  wave  arrived  he  saw  for  himself 
what  the  terrible  insect  could  do  in  a  man's  brain. 

In  the  canteen  it  was  bad  enough  on  pay  nights  —  so 
called  "the  Legion's  holidays "-- but  there  reigned 
Madame  la  Cantiniere,  young,  good  looking,  a  respected 
queen,  who  would  go  on  march  with  the  Legion  in  her 
cart,  and  who  must  at  all  times  to  a  certain  extent  be 
obeyed.  But  in  dim  side-streets  of  the  town,  far  from 
the  lights  of  the  smart,  out-of-doors  cafes,  were  casse 
croutes  kept  by  Spaniards  who  cared  nothing  for  the  fate 
of  Legionnaires  when  they  had  spent  their  last  sou.  The 
cafard  grew  and  prospered  there.  He  tickled  men's 
gray  matter  and  kneaded  it  in  his  microscopic  claws. 
There  his  victims  fought  each  other,  for  no  reason  which 
they  could  explain  afterward,  or  mutilated  themselves, 


THE  BEETLE  193 

tearing  off  an  ear,  or  tattooing  a  face  with  some  design  to 
rival  Four  Eyes;  or  they  sold  parts  of  their  uniforms  to  buy 
a  little  more  drink,  or  tried  to  blow  out  their  brains,  or 
the  brains  of  some  one  else.  Afterward,  if  they  survived, 
they  went  to  prison;  but  if  it  could  be  proved  that  they 
were  indeed  suffering  from  cafard,  they  got  off  with  light 
sentences. 

Officers  of  the  Legion  old  enough  to  have  won  a  few 
medals  seemed  to  respect  the  cafard  and  make  allowances 
for  his  deadly  work.  If  the  men  did  not  survive,  they 
—  what  was  left  of  them  —  went  to  the  cemetery  to  rest 
under  small  black  crosses  marked  with  name  and  number, 
their  only  mourners  the  great  cypresses  which  sighed  with 
every  breath  of  wind  from  the  mountains. 

One  August  night  of  blazing  heat  and  moonlight  Max 
could  not  sleep.  There  had  been  a  scene  in  the  dormitory 
which  had  got  every  man  out  of  bed,  but  an  hour  after 
the  tired  soldiers  were  dead  to  the  world  again  —  all 
save  Max,  who  felt  as  if  a  white  fire  like  the  moonlight 
was  raging  in  his  brain. 

He  lay  still,  as  though  he  were  gagged  and  bound,  lest 
a  sigh,  or  a  rustle  in  turning  over  —  as  he  longed  to  turn 
-might  waken  a  neighbour.  The  hours  set  apart  for 
the  Legion's  repose  were  sacred,  so  profoundly  sacred 
that  any  man  who  made  the  least  noise  at  night  or  during 
the  afternoon  siesta  was  given  good  cause  to  regret  his 
awkwardness.  The  most  inveterate  snorers  were  cured, 
or  half  killed;  and  to-night,  in  this  great  room  with  its 
double  row  of  beds,  the  trained  silence  of  the  sleepers 
seemed  unnatural,  almost  terrible,  especially  after  the 
horror  that  had  broken  it.  Max  had  never  before  felt 


194  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

the  oppression  of  this  deathlike  stillness.  Usually  he 
slept  as  the  rest  slept;  but  now,  weary  as  he  was,  he 
resigned  himself  to  lie  staring  through  the  slow  hours, 
till  the  orderly's  call,  "Au  jus!"  should  rouse  the  men  to 
swallow  their  coffee  before  reveille. 

The  dormitory,  white  with  moonlight  streaming  through 
curtainless  open  windows,  seemed  to  Max  like  a  mauso- 
leum. He  could  see  the  still,  flat  forms,  uncovered  and 
prone  on  their  narrow  beds,  like  carven  figures  of  soldiers 
on  tombs.  He  alone  was  alive  among  a  company  of 
statues.  The  men  could  not  be  human  to  sleep  so  soon 
and  so  soundly  after  the  thing  that  had  happened ! 

In  his  hot  brain  the  scene  repeated  itself  constantly  in 
bright,  moving  pictures.  He  had  been  rather  miserable 
before  going  to  bed,  and  had  longed  for  forgetfulness. 
Sleep  had  brought  its  balm,  but  suddenly  he  had  started 
awake  to  see  a  man  bending  over  him,  a  dark  shape  with 
lifted  arms  that  fumbled  along  the  shelf  above  the  bed. 
On  that  shelf  was  the  famous  paquetage  of  the  Legion- 
naire; all  his  belongings,  underclothes,  and  uniforms, 
built  into  the  wonderful,  artistic  structure  which  Four 
Eyes  had  shown  his  pet  how  to  make.  A  thief  was 
searching  among  the  neat  layers  of  the  paquetage  for 
money:  every  one  knew  that  St.  George  had  money,  for 
he  was  continually  lending  or  giving  it  away.  This  one 
meant  to  save  him  the  trouble  by  taking  it.  Max  felt 
suddenly  sick.  He  had  thought  all  his  comrades  true  to 
him.  It  was  a  blow  to  find  that  some  one  wished  to 
steal  the  little  he  had  left,  though  he  had  grudged  no  gift. 

Just  as  Max  waked  the  thief  satisfied  himself  that  the 
well-known  wallet  was  not  hidden  in  the  paquetage,  and 


THE  BEETLE  195 

stooped  lower  to  peer  at  the  sleeper's  face  before  feeling 
under  the  pillow.  His  eyes  and  Max's  wide-open  eyes 
met.  In  a  flash  Max  recognized  the  man.  He  was  of 
another  company,  and  had  risked  much  to  steal  into  the 
dormitory  of  the  Tenth.  The  fellow  must  be  desperate! 
A  wave  of  mingled  pity  and  loathing  rushed  over  Max. 
Fearing  consequences  for  the  wretch,  should  any  one  wake, 
he  would  mercifully  have  motioned  him  off  in  silence; 
but  the  warning  gesture  was  misunderstood.  The  thief 
started  back,  expecting  a  blow,  stumbled  against  the 
nearest  bed,  roused  Four  Eyes,  and  in  a  second  the  whole 
room  was  in  an  uproar. 

The  full  moon  lit  the  intruder's  face  as  if  with  a  white 
ray  from  a  police  lantern.  Pelle  and  a  dozen  others  rec- 
ognized the  man  from  the  Eleventh,  who  could  have  but 
one  midnight  errand  in  the  sleeping-room  of  the  Tenth: 
the  errand  of  a  thief.  Like  wolves  they  leaped  on  him, 
snapping  and  growling,  swearing  the  strange  oaths  of  the 
Legion.  Bayonets  flashed  in  the  moonlight ;  blood  spouted 
red,  for  a  soldier  of  the  Legion  may  "decorate"  himself 
with  a  comrade's  belt,  or  bit  of  equipment,  if  another  has 
annexed  his:  that  is  legitimate,  even  chic;  but  money  or 
food  he  must  not  steal  if  he  would  live.  It  is  the  Legion's 
law. 

All  was  over  inside  two  minutes.  The  guard,  hearing 
shouts,  rushed  in  and  stoically  bore  away  a  limp,  blood- 
stained bundle  to  the  hospital.  Nobody  blamed  the 
men.  Nobody  pitied  the  bundle  —  except  Max,  whose 
first  experience  it  was  of  the  Legion's  swift  justice.  But 
nothing,  not  even  exciting  prospects  of  a  march,  can  be 
allowed  to  spoil  the  Legion's  rest;  and  so  it  was  that  in 


196  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

half  an  hour  the  raging  avengers  had  become  once  more 
stone  figures  carved  on  narrow  tombs  in  a  moonlit  mauso- 
leum. 

For  the  first  and  only  time  since  he  had  joined  Max 
thoroughly  hated  the  Legion  and  wished  wildly  that  he 
had  never  come  near  Sidi-bel-Abbes.  Yet  did  he  wish 
that?  If  he  had  not  come  he  would  not  have  met  Colonel 
DeLisle,  his  beau  ideal  of  a  man  and  a  soldier.  He  would 
be  a  boy  again,  it  seemed,  with  his  eyes  shut  in  the  face  of 
life.  And  he  would  miss  his  sweetest  memory  of  Sanda: 
that  hour  in  the  Salle  d'Honneur  of  the  Legion,  when 
she  had  christened  him  St.  George  and  called  him  "her 
soldier."  But  after  all,  of  what  use  to  him  could  be  his 
acquaintance  with  the  Legion's  colonel?  There  was  a 
gulf  between  them  now.  And  would  it  not  be  as  well 
or  better  to  forget  that  little  episode  of  friendship  with 
the  colonel's  daughter?  She  had  probably  forgotten  it 
by  this  time.  And  a  Legionnaire  has  no  business  with 
women,  even  as  friends.  Besides,  Max  was  in  a  mood 
to  doubt  all  friendship.  He  had  had  a  letter  that  day  — 
his  first  letter  from  any  one  in  four  months  —  telling 
him  that  Grant  Reeves  had  married  Josephine  Doran. 

Of  course,  Grant  had  a  right  to  marry  Josephine;  but 
not  to  write  until  the  wedding  day  was  safely  over  —  as 
if  he  had  been  afraid  Max  would  try  to  stop  it  —  and  then 
to  confess  how  he  had  come  with  his  mother  to  meet 
Josephine  at  Algiers!  That  was  secret  and  unfriendly, 
even  treacherous.  Max  remembered  very  well  how  Grant 
had  proposed  accompanying  Mrs.  Reeves,  and  he  —  Max 
—  had  rather  impetuously  vetoed  the  arrangement,  say- 
ing it  was  unnecessary,  and  guessing  instinctively  the 


THE  BEETLE  197 

budding  idea  in  Grant's  mind.  It  was  clear  now  that 
Grant  had  never  abandoned  it,  that  he  had  from  the  first 
planned  a  campaign  to  win  the  heiress  before  any  other 
man  had  a  chance  with  her,  and  that  he  had  carried  out 
the  scheme  with  never  a  hitch.  The  letter,  written  on 
the  eve  of  the  wedding,  had  been  three  weeks  on  the 
way.  Grant  (the  only  person  except  Edwin  Reeves  to 
whom  Max  had  revealed  himself  as  Maxime  St.  George, 
Number  1033,  in  the  Tenth  Company,  First  Regiment 
of  the  Foreign  Legion)  wrote  that  he  was  telling  nobody 
where  his  friend  was,  or  what  he  had  done.  "The  day 
will  surely  come,  dear  boy, "  Grant  said  —  and  Max  could 
almost  hear  his  voice  speaking  —  "  when  you  will  wish  to 
blot  out  these  pages  from  your  book  of  life.  I  want  to 
make  it  easy  for  you  to  do  so;  and  I  advise  you  to  keep 
your  present  resolve:  confide  in  none  of  your  pals.  They 
might  not  be  as  discreet  as  the  governor  and  I. " 

"He's  glad  I'm  out  of  the  way,"  thought  Max.  "He 
wants  me  to  be  forgotten  by  every  one,  and  he  wants  to 
forget  me  himself.  If  I  were  on  the  spot,  poor,  and  hus- 
tling to  get  on  somehow  or  other  in  business,  it  might 
worry  him  a  little  to  be  seen  spending  money  that  used 
to  be  mine." 

Perhaps  it  was  morbid  to  attribute  these  motives  to 
Grant  Reeves,  who  had  once  been  his  friend,  but  he  did 
attribute  them;  and  conscious  that  he  was  actually  en- 
couraging morbid  thoughts,  Max  wondered  if  he,  too,  were 
getting  the  cafard,  the  madness  of  the  Legion?  Lying 
there,  the  only  waking  one  among  the  sleepers,  fear  of 
unseen,  mysterious  things,  the  fear  that  sometimes  attacks 
a  brave  man  in  the  night,  leaped  at  him  out  of  the  shadows. 


198  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

He  could  almost  feel  the  sharp  little  claws  of  the  dreaded 
beetle  scratching  in  his  brain.  Yes,  he'd  been  a  fool  to 
join  the  Legion,  and  to  hand  over  Jack  Doran's  house  and 
fortune  to  Grant  Reeves!  It  was  impossible  that  Grant 
had  married  Josephine  for  love.  He  had  simply  taken 
her  with  the  money,  and  he  meant  to  have  the  spending 
of  it. 

In  the  letter,  Grant  said  that  they  planned  to  alter 
the  old  Doran  house  and  "bring  it  up  to  date."  It  was 
he,  Grant,  who  had  all  the  ideas,  .apparently.  Josephine 
was  letting  him  do  as  he  pleased.  What  should  she  know 
about  such  matters?  If  she  could  have  all  the  dresses 
and  jewels  and  fur  she  wanted,  Grant  would  be  allowred 
to  go  his  own  way  with  other  things.  He  was  clever 
enough  to  understand  that,  and  to  manage  Josephine. 

With  the  letter  Grant  had  posted  a  bundle  of  Sunday 
newspapers  and  illustrated  magazines,  such  a  bundle  of 
old  news  as  one  sends  to  an  invalid  in  hospital.  Max  had 
glanced  through  some  of  the  papers  before  going  to  bed, 
looking  with  a  sad,  far-off  sort  of  interest  at  portraits  of 
people  whose  names  he  knew.  There  had  been  a  page  of 
"America's  most  beautiful  actresses"  in  one  Sunday 
supplement,  and  among  them,  of  course,  was  Billie  Brook- 
ton.  No  such  page  would  be  complete  without  her!  It 
was  a  new  photograph  that  Max  had  never  seen.  The 
smiling  face,  head  drooped  slightly  in  order  to  give 
Billie's  celebrated  upward  look  from  under  level  brows, 
had  the  place  of  honour  in  the  middle  of  the  page.  And 
a  paragraph  beneath  announced  that  Billie  would  leave 
the  stage  on  her  marriage  with  "Millionaire  Jeff  Houston, 
of  Chicago." 


THE  BEETLE  199 

No  doubt  Houston  was  the  man  she  had  mentioned 
in  her  last  letter.  Round  her  neck,  in  the  picture,  Max 
thought  he  recognized  his  pearls,  and  on  the  pretty  hand, 
raised  to  play  with  a  rope  of  bigger  pearls  —  "Millionaire 
Houston's  "  perhaps  —  was  the  ring  Max  had  given  her 
the  night  when  the  telegram  came.  The  photograph, 
which  was  large  and  clearly  reproduced,  showed  the 
curiously  shaped  stone  on  the  middle  finger  of  Billie's 
left  hand.  A  large  round  pearl  adorned  the  finger  on 
which  Max  had  once  hoped  she  might  wear  the  blue 
diamond,  a  pearl  so  conspicuous  that  the  original  of  the 
picture  appeared  to  display  it  purposely.  "Millionaire 
Houston"  would  be  flattered;  and  that  was  what  Billie 
Brookton  wanted.  As  for  what  Max  Doran  might  think 
if  he  saw  the  portrait,  why  should  she  care?  For  her,  he 
was  numbered  with  the  dead. 

Max  was  no  longer  in  love  with  Billie.  The  shock  of 
Rose  Doran's  terrible  accident,  the  story  she  had  to  tell, 
and  her  death,  had  chilled  the  fire  of  what  he  thought  was 
love.  The  letter  of  farewell  had  put  it  out.  But  the 
scar  of  the  burn  sometimes  hurts.  To-night  was  one  of 
those  times;  and  Max  believed  that  his  disappointment 
in  Billie  had  had  its  influence  in  driving  him  to  the  Legion. 
She  stood  now  as  a  type  of  what  was  mercenary,  calculat- 
ing, and  false  in  womankind,  just  as  (almost  unknown  to 
himself)  Sanda  DeLisle  stood  for  what  was  gentle,  yet 
brave  and  true.  He  felt  that  Billie  Brookton  had  made 
him  hard,  with  a  hardness  that  was  not  good;  and  that 
not  only  she,  but  all  those  he  had  cared  for  most  in  his 
old  life,  had  deceived  and  tricked  or  at  best  forgotten 
him.  Lying  in  his  narrow  bunk,  Max  lifted  his  head  and 


200  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

let  his  eyes  wander  over  the  faces  of  his  comrades,  turned 
to  gray  stone  by  the  moonlight.  Not  one  which  was  not 
sad,  except  that  of  the  Alsatian  who  had  joined  on  the 
day  of  his  own  recruitment.  The  boy  was  smiling  in 
some  dream  and  looked  like  a  child,  but  a  sickly  child, 
for  the  heat  and  the  severe  marching  drill  for  les  bleus 
were  telling  upon  him.  Faces  of  twenty  different  types, 
faces  which  by  day  masked  their  secrets  with  sullenness, 
defiance,  or  stolidity,  could  hide  nothing  in  sleep,  but 
fell  into  lines  of  sadness  that  gave  a  strange  family  re- 
semblance to  the  stone  soldiers  on  the  tombs.  Saddest 
of  all,  after  Manoel  Valdez,  perhaps,  was  the  wrecked 
visage  of  Pelle,  whose  own  particular  cafard  had  been 
leading  him  a  merry  dance  the  last  few  days. 

To  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  with  a  letter  of  introduction  to  the 
colonel,  had  come  an  old  officer  of  the  British  army,  a  man 
of  distinction.  Pelle,  as  an  Englishman  and  an  ex-soldier, 
had  been  honoured  by  being  appointed  his  guide.  The 
two  had  recognized  one  another.  Pelle  had  served  under 
the  officer  years  ago.  The  encounter  had  been  too  much 
for  Quatro  Oyos:  that,  and  the  money  the  general  gave 
him  at  parting.  Remembrance  of  past  days  was  the 
enemy  in  the  Legion.  Four  Eyes  had  been  half  drunk 
ever  since,  and  had  escaped  prison  only  by  a  miracle. 
That,  however,  was  nothing  new  for  him.  He  had  been 
corporal  twice  and  sergeant  once;  each  time  he  had  been 
"broke"  because  of  drink.  In  spite  of  all,  he  had  stuck 
to  the  Legion.  There  was  no  other  place  for  him  on 
earth.  The  Legion  was  his  country  now  —  his  only 
country  and  his  only  home.  His  medals  he  had  asked 
Max  to  keep  till  he  "settled  down  again."  They  mustn't 


THE  BEETLE  201 

go  to  the  places  where  the  cafard  would  take  him.  They 
mustn't  risk  disgrace  through  things  which  the  cafard 
might  make  him  do.  He  looked  like  the  ruin  of  a  man 
in  the  revealing  moonshine.  But  to-morrow  he  would 
be  a  soldier  again  till  night  came,  and  sooner  or  later  he 
would  pull  himself  together  —  more  or  less.  The  medals 
he  had  won  and  his  love  of  sport  were  his  incentives. 
Yet  there  were  other  men  who  had  no  medals  and  no 
special  incentives,  and  to-night  Max  felt  himself  down  on 
a  level  with  those. 

"  What  incentive  have  I?  "  he  asked,  in  a  flash  of  furious 
rebellion  against  fate,  conscious  yet  not  caring  that  such 
thoughts  spawned  the  beetle  in  the  brain.  Five  years  of 
this  life  to  look  forward  to !  —  the  life  he  had  pledged 
himself  to  live.  The  officers  did  their  best.  It  was 
vieux  style  nowadays  for  an  officer  of  the  Legion  to  be 
cruel.  But  try  as  they  might  to  break  the  sameness  of 
barrack  life  by  changing  the  order  of  drill  and  exercise 
-fencing  one  day,  boxing  the  next,  then  gymnastics, 
target-practice,  marching,  skirmishing,  learning  first  aid 
to  the  wounded,  giving  all  the  variety  possible,  the  monot- 
ony was  heart-breaking,  as  Colonel  DeLisle  had  warned 
him  it  would  be.  And  a  great  march,  when  a  march 
meant  the  chance  of  a  fight,  didn't  always  come  in  the 
way  of  a  young  soldier,  even  one  whose  conduct  was 
unsmirched  by  any  stain.  Max  did  not  know  yet  whether 
he  would  be  taken  on  the  march  that  all  the  garrison  was 
talking  of.  To-night  the  beetle  in  his  brain  tried  to 
make  him  think  he  would  not  be  taken.  There  was  no 
luck  any  more  for  him!  And  as  for  his  corporal's  stripe, 
if  he  got  it  soon,  what  a  pathetic  prize  for  a  man  who 


202  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

had  been  a  lieutenant  in  the  — th  Cavalry,  the  crack 
cavalry  regiment  of  the  United  States  Army ! 

Oh,  better  not  to  think  of  future  or  past !  Better  not  to 
think  at  all,  perhaps,  but  do  as  some  of  the  other  men  did 
when  they  wanted  to  forget  even  as  they  had  been  for- 
gotten: take  the  few  pleasures  in  their  reach,  do  the  very 
things  he  had  been  prig  enough  to  warn  Valdez  not  to 
do !  Let  the  beetle  burrow,  as  a  counter-irritant ! 

"Soldier  St.  George  —  my  soldier!"  a  girl's  voice 
seemed  to  encourage  him. 

Max  heard  it  through  the  scratching  of  the  beetle  in  his 
brain. 

Sanda!  Yes,  Sanda  might  care  a  little,  a  very  little, 
when  she  had  time  to  think  of  him  —  Sanda,  who  loved 
another  man,  but  had  promised  to  be  his  friend.  He 
thought  of  her  eyes  as  they  had  looked  at  him  that  day  in 
the  Salle  d'Honneur.  He  thought  of  her  hair,  her  long, 
soft  hair.  .  .  . 

"  She'd  be  sorry  if  I  let  go,"  he  said  to  himself .  "  Jove ! 
I  won't!  I'll  fight  this  down.  And  if  I'm  taken  on  the 
march " 

He  fell  suddenly  asleep,  thinking  of  Sanda's  hair,  her 
long,  soft  hair. 

And  the  moonlight  turned  him  also  into  a  stone  sol- 
dier on  a  tomb. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE   MISSION 

IT  is  the  darkest  hour  that  comes  before  the  dawn.  Next 
day  Soldier  St.  George  became  Corporal  St.  George,  and 
felt  more  pleasure  in  the  bit  of  red  wool  on  his  sleeve  than 
Lieutenant  Max  Doran  would  have  thought  possible. 

It  was  Four  Eyes  who  brought  him  the  news,  a  week 
later,  that  his  name  was  among  those  who  would  go  on 
"the  great  march."  Four  Eyes  was  somehow  invariably 
the  first  one  to  hear  everything,  good  news  or  bad.  Life 
was  not  so  black  after  all.  There  need  be  no  past  for  a 
Legionnaire,  but  there  might  be  a  future.  None  of  the 
men  knew  for  certain  when  the  start  was  to  be  made,  but 
it  would  be  soon,  and  the  barracks  of  the  Legion  seethed 
with  excitement.  Even  those  who  were  not  going  could 
talk  of  nothing  else.  They  swore  that  there  was  no  doubt 
of  the  business  to  be  done.  The  newly  risen  leader  of  the 
Senussi  had  summoned  large  bands  of  the  sect  to  the  vil- 
lage, El  Gadhari,  of  which  he  was  sheikh,  calling  upon 
them  ostensibly  to  celebrate  a  certain  feast.  Close  to 
this  village  was  one  of  the  most  important  Senussi  monas- 
teries. Tribes  were  moving  all  through  the  south,  appar- 
ently with  no  warlike  intention;  but  the  Deliverer  was 
dangerous.  Just  such  a  leader  as  he  —  even  to  the  gray 
eyes  and  the  horseshoe  on  his  forehead  —  had  been  proph- 

203 


204  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

esied  for  this  time  of  the  world.  The  Legion  would 
march.  And  it  would  maneuver  in  the  desert,  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  El  Gadhari.  If  the  warning  were 
enough  —  there  would  be  no  fighting;  but  the  Legion 
hoped  it  might  not  be  enough.  To  be  the  regiment  or- 
dered to  give  this  warning  was  in  itself  an  honour,  for 
wherever  work  is  hardest  there  the  Legion  goes.  The 
Legion  must  sustain  its  reputation,  such  as  it  is!  Des- 
perate men,  bad  men,  let  them  be  called  by  civilians  in 
times  of  peace,  but  give  them  fighting  and  they  are  the 
glorious  soldiers  who  never  turn  back,  who,  even  when 
they  fall  in  death,  fall  forward  as  they  rush  upon  the 
enemy.  All  the  world  knew  that  of  them,  and  they  knew 
it  of  themselves.  They  knew,  also,  that  when  the  moment 
of  starting  came  men  of  Sidi-bel- Abbes  who  drew  away 
from  them  in  the  streets  and  the  Place  Carnot  would 
take  off  their  hats  as  the  Legion  went  by.  It  would  be 
"Vive  la  Legion!"  then. 

With  each  day  of  burning  heat  the  excitement  grew 
more  feverish.  Surely  this  morning,  or  this  night,  the 
order  would  come!  The  soldiers  whistled  as  they  polished 
their  accoutrements,  whistled  half  beneath  their  breath 
the  "March  of  the  Legion"  which  the  band  is  forbidden 
to  play  in  garrison.  Quarrels  were  forgotten.  Men  who 
had  not  spoken  to  each  other  for  weeks  grinned  in  each 
other's  faces  and  offered  one  another  their  cheap  but 
treasured  cigarettes. 

Almost  every  one  seemed  to  be  happy  except  Garcia. 
He  was  among  those  who  would  not  be  taken  on  the 
march  —  he,  who  craved  and  needed  to  go,  as  did  no  other 
man  in  the  Legion!  Max  feared  Garcia  meant  to  kill 


THE  MISSION  205 

himself  the  night  when  he  lost  hope,  and  would  not  let 
him  go  out  alone  to  walk  in  the  darkness.  "  I  don't  want 
to  ask  if  you  have  any  plans,"  he  said.  "But  there's 
one  thing  I  do  ask:  share  with  me  the  money  I've  got 
left.  You  may  need  it.  I  shan't.  And  if  you'll  take  it, 
that'll  be  proof  that  you  think  as  much  of  me  as  I  do  of 
you." 

Garcia  took  it,  from  the  wallet  which  a  man  now  lying 
in  the  hospital  had  tried  to  empty  the  other  night.  Then 
Max  knew  for  certain  what  the  queer  light  in  Manoel's 
eyes  meant.  He  could  not  help  a  rejoicing  thrill  in  the 
other's  desperate  courage  which  no  obstacle  had  crushed. 

That  same  night,  when  the  two  had  separated  (St. 
George  reassured,  and  believing  that  Garcia  had  use  for 
his  life  after  all),  Max  met  Colonel  DeLisle  face  to  face, 
for  the  first  time  alone  and  unofficially  since  they  had 
parted  in  the  Salle  d'Honneur.  The  colonel  was  walking 
unaccompanied,  in  the  street  not  far  from  the  little  garden 
of  the  officers'  club,  where  the  band  was  to  give  a  concert, 
and  returning  Max's  quick  salute  he  turned  to  call  him 
back. 

" Good  evening,  Corporal!  I  should  like  to  speak  with 
you  a  minute!"  DeLisle  cried  out  cheerfully  in  English. 
Max's  heart  gave  a  bound.  Surely  never  could  the  word 
"Corporal"  have  sounded  so  like  fine  music  in  a  poor, 
non-commissioned  officer's  ears! 

He  wheeled,  pale  with  pleasure  that  his  beau  ideal 
should  wish  to  speak  with  him,  and  in  English,  the  lan- 
guage they  had  used  when  they  were  still  social  equals. 
"My  Colonel!"  he  stammered. 

"  I  want  to  congratulate  you  on  your  quick  promotion, " 


206  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

said  DeLisle.  "  It  has  come  to  you  in  spite  of  your  reso- 
lution to  take  no  advantage  in  the  beginning  over  your 
comrades.  I  congratulate  you  on  that,  too,  and  on 
keeping  it,  now  it  has  turned  out  so  well.  I  hoped  and 
believed  it  would  be  so,  though  I  advised  you  for  your 
good." 

"I  know  that,  my  Colonel,"  answered  Max,  deter- 
mined not  to  presume  in  speech  or  act  upon  his  superior 
officer's  kindness.  "I  knew  it  then." 

"It  may  seem  a  pitifully  small  step  up,"  DeLisle  went 
on,  "  but  it's  the  first  reward  the  Legion  can  give  a  soldier. 
There  will  be  others.  I  shall  have  to  congratulate  you 
again  before  long,  I'm  sure.  Meanwhile,  I  have  a  message 
for  you. "  He  paused  for  an  instant,  slightly  hesitating, 
perhaps.  "It  is  from  my  daughter.  She  is  in  the  south, 
visiting  the  daughter  of  an  Agha  who  is  very  loyal  to 
France  as  a  servant,  very  loyal  to  me  as  a  friend.  Be- 
cause of  the  march  last  spring,  and  again  this  one,  now 
coming  (which  I  expected  for  this  time,  and  on  which 
I  must  go  myself),  I  could  not  have  a  young  girl  like  Sanda 
living  in  Sidi-bel- Abbes.  She  is  happy  and  interested 
where  she  is,  and  she  has  not  forgotten  you.  In  more 
than  one  letter  she  has  wished  to  be  remembered  to  you, 
if  possible.  To-night,  Corporal,  it  is  possible,  and  I'm 
glad  to  give  the  message." 

"I  thank  you  for  it,  my  Colonel,"  Max  said,  half 
ashamed  of  the  deep  feeling  which  his  voice  betrayed. 
"I  —  wish  I  might  be  able  to  thank  Miss  DeLisle.      It 
is  a  great  deal  to  me  that  she  should  remember  me  — 
my " 

"Your  chivalry?     It  would  be  impossible  to  forget," 


THE  MISSION  207 

DeLisle  took  him  up  crisply.  Then  he  dismissed  the 
subject,  as  Max  felt.  "Tell  me,"  he  went  on  in  the 
same  cheerful  tone  in  which  he  had  called  out  "  Corporal ! " 
"Are  you  happy  to  escape  the  caserne,  and  get  away  to  the 
desert?" 

Suddenly  a  wild  idea  sprang  into  Max's  head.  Des- 
perately, not  daring  to  let  himself  stop  and  think,  he 
spoke.  "I  should  be  happy,  my  Colonel,  but  for  one 
thing.  Have  I  your  permission  to  tell  you  what  it  is?" 

"  Yes,"  said  DeLisle.  "  If  I  can  help  you  in  the  matter, 
I  will." 

"  My  Colonel,  it's  in  your  power  to  do  me  a  favour  I 
would  repay  you  for  with  my  life  if  necessary,  though" 
—  and  Max  began  to  stammer  again  —  "  that  would  be  at 
your  service  in  any  case.  The  best  friend  I  have  made  in 
the  regiment  would  give  his  soul  to  go  on  this  march.  I 
know  he  hasn't  always  behaved  as  a  soldier  ought,  but 
he's  as  brave  as  he  is  hot  tempered  and  reckless.  If  it 
could  be  reconsidered 

"You  mean  Garcia? "  broke  in  Colonel  DeLisle  sharply. 

Max  was  astonished.  Instantly  he  saw  that  the  colonel 
must  have  been  watching  his  career.  He  might  have 
guessed  as  much  from  the  reward  of  merit  just  given 
him  —  friendly  congratulations  and  Sanda's  message,  a 
thousand  times  more  valued  for  the  delay;  and  he  had 
begun  to  realize  that  he  had  never  been  abandoned,  never 
forgotten.  But  the  colonel's  knowledge  of  his  friendship 
with  Garcia  brought  the  thrilling  truth  home,  almost 
with  a  shock. 

"Yes,  my  Colonel  —  Garcia,"  he  replied. 

"Well,  I  can  make  no  promise,"  said  DeLisle,  speaking 


208  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

now  more  in  the  tone  of  an  officer  with  a  subordinate,  yet 
showing  that  he  was  not  vexed.  "  But  —  I  should  like 
you  to  go  away  happy,  Corporal.  I'll  look  into  the  affair  of 
your  friend,  and  after  that  —  we  shall  see.  Good-night." 

Again  the  salute  was  exchanged,  and  the  colonel  was 
gone,  turning  in  at  the  garden  gate  of  the  Cercle  Militaire. 
The  meeting,  and  all  that  had  passed,  seemed  like  a  waking 
dream.  Max  could  hardly  believe  it  had  happened,  that 
Sanda  had  sent  him  a  message,  that  her  father  had  given 
it,  and  that  he,  scarcely  more  than  a  bleu,  had  dared  to 
speak  for  Manoel  Valdez. 

That  day  it  proved  not  to  be  a  dream,  for  Garcia 
learned  officially  that  he  was  to  go  with  his  comrades. 
Max  hardly  knew  whether  or  no  it  would  be  wise  to 
explain  how  the  miracle  had  come  to  pass,  but  there  was 
a  reason  why  he  wished  to  tell.  When  the  truth  was  out, 
and  Valdez  ready  to  worship  his  friend,  Max  said:  "I 
did  it  before  I  stopped  to  think;  if  I  had  stopped,  I  don't 
know  —  for  you  see,  in  a  way,  this  makes  me  a  traitor 
to  the  colonel.  I  begged  him  for  a  favour  and  he  granted 
it.  Yet  you  and  I  understand  what  your  going  means. 
I've  been  asking  him  for  your  chance  to  —  well,  we  won't 
put  it  in  words!  Only,  for  God's  sake,  try  to  think  of 
some  other  way  to  do  what  you've  got  to  do ! " 

"Even  you  admit  that  I  have  got  to  do  it!"  Valdez 
argued.  "  To  save  a  woman  —  it's  to  save  her  life,  you 
know." 

"I  know,"  said  Max.  "But  there  may  be  some  other 
way  than  this  one  in  your  mind." 

"  If  there  is,  I'll  take  it.  And  now  I  can  give  you  back 
your  money." 


THE  MISSION  209 

"  No !     You'll  need  every  sou  if " 

"You're  the  best  friend  a  man  ever  had!"  cried  the 
Spaniard. 

At  midnight  the  alarm  they  were  all  waiting  for  sounded, 
and  though  it  was  expected  at  any  hour,  it  came  as  a 
surprise. 

"Aux  armes!"  rang  out  the  call  of  the  bugle  from  the 
barrack-yard  and  waked  the  stone  soldiers  to  instant 
life.  The  flat,  carved  figures  sat  up  on  their  narrow  tombs 
in  the  moonlight,  then  sprang  to  their  feet.  There  was 
no  need  or  thought  of  discipline  with  that  glorious  alarm 
sounding  in  their  ears!  The  men  yelled  with  joy  and 
roared  from  dormitory  to  dormitory  in  the  wonderful 
Legion  language  made  up  of  chosen  bits  from  every  other 
language  of  the  world. 

"Faites  les  sacs.  En  tenue  de  campagne  d'Afrique!" 
bawled  excited  corporals.  Everything  had  to  be  done  in 
about  ten  minutes;  and  though  all  soldiers  knew  the  pro- 
gramme thoroughly,  and  young  soldiers  had  gone  through 
it  in  drill  a  hundred  times,  the  real  thing  was  somehow 
different.  Men  stumbled  over  each  other  and  forgot 
what  to  do  first.  Corporals  swore  and  threatened;  but 
to  an  onlooker  the  work  of  packing  would  have  seemed 
to  go  by  magic.  At  the  end  of  the  ten  minutes  the 
barrack-yard  was  full  of  men  lined  up,  ready  for  marching, 
and  soldiers  of  all  nations  thanked  their  gods  for  finding 
that  the  cartridges  served  out  to  them  from  the  maga- 
zine were  not  blank  ones.  They  had  all  protested  their 
certainty  that  this  march  was  for  business;  and  when  they 
had  heard  that  their  colonel  was  going  with  them  they 
had  been  doubly  sure;  yet  in  their  hearts  they  had  anx- 


210  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

iously  admitted  that  it  was  guesswork.  Now  these 
blessed  cartridges  packed  full  of  the  right  stuff  put  an 
end  to  furtive  doubts. 

As  the  companies  formed  up,  the  "  Legion's  March  "  was 
played,  and  the  young  soldiers  who  had  never  heard  it, 
unless  whistled  sotto  voce  by  old  Legionnaires,  felt  the  thrill 
of  its  tempestuous  strains  in  the  marrow  of  their  bones. 

Nowadays  the  great  marches  of  the  Foreign  Legion 
are  not  what  they  once  were,  unless  for  government 
maneuvers.  When  there  is  need  of  haste  the  Legion 
goes  by  the  railway  the  Legion  has  helped  to  lay;  and 
only  at  the  end  of  the  line  begins  the  real  business  for 
which  the  Legion  lives.  For  the  Legion  is  meant  for 
the  hardest  marching  (with  the  heaviest  kits  in  the  world) 
as  well  as  the  fiercest  fighting;  and  when  the  Legion 
marches  through  the  desert,  it  is  "marcher  ou  mourir." 

The  cry  of  the  bugles  reached  the  ears  of  the  heaviest 
sleepers  in  town;  for  those  who  knew  the  Legion  and  the 
Legion's  music  knew  that  the  soldiers  were  off  for  a  great 
march,  or  that  wild  air  would  not  be  played.  Win- 
dows flew  up  and  heads  looked  down  as  the  soldiers 
tramping  the  bright  moonlit  street  went  to  the  railway 
station.  So  the  "lucky  ones"  of  the  Legion  passed  out 
of  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  some  of  them  never  to  return.  And 
perhaps  that  was  lucky,  too,  for  it's  as  well  for  a  Legion- 
naire to  rest  in  the  desert  as  under  one  of  the  little  black 
crosses  behind  the  wall  of  cypresses  in  the  Legion's 
burial  ground. 

'  They  had  to  go  by  the  new  railway  line  to  Touggourt, 
as  Sanda  DeLisle  had  gone,  but  instead  of  travelling  by 


THE  MISSION  211 

passenger  train,  the  soldiers  went  as  Max  had  seen  the 
hatch  of  recruits  from  Oran  arrive  at  Bel- Abbes:  in  wag- 
ons which  could  be  used  for  freight  or  France's  human 
merchandise :  "  32  hommes,  6  cheveaux. "  After  Touggourt 
their  way  would  diverge  from  Sanda's.  There  was  no 
chance  for  Colonel  DeLisle  to  go  and  see  his  daughter, 
but  in  a  letter  he  had  told  her  the  date  of  his  arrival  in  the 
oasis  town  and  the  hope  he  had  —  a  hope  almost  a 
certainty  —  of  hearing  from  his  girl  there,  or  having  a 
message  of  love  to  take  with  him  on  the  long  march, 
warmed  his  heart.  It  was  very  strange,  almost  horrible, 
to  remember  how  he  had  felt  toward  his  daughter  until 
the  day  she  came  to  him,  in  the  image  of  his  dead  love, 
at  Sidi-bel-Abbes.  He  had  not  wanted  to  see  her.  He 
had  even  felt  that  he  could  not  bear  to  see  her.  Unjust 
and  brutal  as  it  was,  he  had  never  been  able  to  banish 
the  thought  that,  if  it  had  not  been  for  her,  his  wife  might 
have  been  with  him  through  the  years.  Sanda  had  cost 
him  the  happiness  of  his  life. 

He  had  easily  persuaded  himself  that  in  any  case,  even 
if  he  had  wanted  her  with  him,  for  her  sake  it  was  far 
better  not.  Such  an  existence  as  his  was  not  for  a  young 
woman  to  share,  even  after  she  had  passed  the  schoolgirl 
age.  It  had  seemed  to  DeLisle  that  the  only  place  for 
Sanda  was  with  her  aunts,  and  passing  half  her  time  in 
France,  half  in  Ireland,  gave  the  girl  a  chance  to  see 
something  of  the  world.  She  was  not  poor,  for  she  had  her 
mother's  money;  and  because  he  wished  to  contribute 
something  toward  his  daughter's  keep,  rather  than  because 
she  needed  it,  he  always  paid  for  her  education  and  her 
board.  What  she  had  of  her  own,  from  her  mother,  must 


212  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

be  saved  for  her  dot  when  she  married;  and  half  uncon- 
sciously he  had  hoped  that  she  would  marry  early. 

After  he  saw  her  —  the  lovely  young  thing  who  had 
run  away  to  him,  as  her  mother  had  —  all  that  had  been 
changed  in  an  instant.  His  heart  was  at  her  little  feet. 
as  it  had  been  at  the  feet  of  the  first  Sanda,  whose  copy 
she  was. 

His  time  for  the  next  few  months  was  so  mapped  out 
that  he  could  not  have  the  girl  with  him  for  more  than 
the  first  few  days  of  joy,  for  she  could  not  be  left  in  Sidi- 
bel-Abbes  while  he  was  away  on  duty.  He  had  done  the 
best  he  could  for  his  daughter  by  giving  her  a  romantic 
taste  of  desert  life  in  the  house  of  a  tried  friend  whom 
he  believed  he  might  trust;  but  he  thought  tenderly  and 
constantly  of  la  petite,  and  of  future  days  when  they  might 
be  together  —  if  he  came  back  alive  from  those  "maneu- 
vers" near  El  Gadhari.  Approaching  Touggourt,  the 
first  scene  of  his  life's  great  love  tragedy,  he  could  hardly 
wait  for  the  letter  he  hoped  for  from  Sanda.  He  expected 
another  event,  also  the  pleasure  of  meeting  Richard 
Stanton,  whom  he  had  not  seen  for  years,  and  who  would 
be,  he  knew,  at  Touggourt,  getting  together  a  caravan 
for  that  "mad  expedition"  (as  every  one  called  it)  in 
search  of  the  Lost  Oasis.  But  if  Stanton  had  cared  as 
much  for  his  old  friend  as  in  past  days,  he  had  protested, 
he  would  have  given  a  day  or  two  to  go  out  of  his  way 
and  visit  the  Colonel  of  the  Foreign  Legion  at  its  head- 
quarters. He  had  not  done  that,  and  though  DeLisle 
told  himself  that  he  was  not  hurt,  his  enthusiasm  at  the 
thought  of  the  meeting  was  slightly  dampened.  He 
looked  forward  more  keenly  to  Sanda's  letter  than  to  an 


THE  MISSION  213 

encounter  with  his  erratic  friend.  It  was  good  to  have 
something  heart-warming  to  hope  for  in  a  place  so  poig- 
nantly associated  with  the  past. 

There  was  plenty  for  the  Legionnaires  to  do  in  Toug- 
gourt.  Having  come  by  rail,  then*  first  camp  was  made 
in  the  flat  space  of  desert  between  the  big  oasis  town  and 
the  dunes.  They  were  to  stay  only  a  few  hours,  for  the 
first  stage  of  their  march  would  begin  long  before  sun-up, 
and  most  of  their  leisure  was  to  be  spent  in  sleep.  Yet 
somehow  there  was  time  for  a  look  at  the  sights  of  the 
place.  One  of  these  was  a  large  Arab  cafe  on  the  out- 
skirts of  the  town  where  the  trampled  sand  of  the  streets 
became  a  vast,  flowing  wave  of  gold.  Four  Eyes  had  been 
in  Touggourt  more  than  once,  having  marched  all  the 
way  from  Bel-Abbes,  long  before  the  railway  was  begun 
or  thought  of.  He  urged  Max  to  come  into  the  low  white 
building  where  at  dusk  the  raita  and  the  tomtom  had 
begun  to  scream  and  throb. 

"Prettiest  dancing  girls  of  the  Sahara,"  he  said,  "and 
a  fellow  there  I  used  to  know  in  Bel-Abbes  —  in  the 
Chasseurs  —  has  just  told  me  there's  a  great  show  for 
to-night." 

There  were  several  cafes  in  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  where  the 
proprietors  engaged  Arab  girls  to  dance,  but  Max,  who  had 
paid  one  visit,  in  curiosity,  thought  the  women  disgusting 
and  the  dancing  dull.  He  said  that  he  had  no  faith  in 
the  Touggourt  attractions,  and  would  rather  take  a  stroll. 

"You  don't  know  what  you're  talking  about!"  Four 
Eyes  scouted  his  objections.  "Haven't  you  heard  the 
scandal  about  this  Stanton,  the  exploring  man,  who's 
here  —  our  colonel's  old  pal?" 


214  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

"No,  I've  heard  that  Stanton's  at  Touggourt.  But 
I've  heard  no  scandal,"  answered  Max.  "What  has  he 
got  to  do  with  the  dancing  girls?  " 

As  he  spoke,  it  was  as  if  he  saw  Stanton  sitting  with 
Sanda  DeLisle  at  one  of  the  little  tea-tables  on  the  ter- 
race of  the  Hotel  St.  George  at  Algiers;  the  square,  reso- 
lute, red-tanned  face,  and  the  big,  square  blue  eyes, 
burning  with  aggressive  vitality. 

"Everything  to  do  with  one  of  them,"  said  Four  Eyes. 
"That's  the  scandal.  Seems  Stanton's  been  playing  the 
fool.  They  say  he's  half  mad,  anyhow,  about  a  lot  of 
things  —  always  was,  but  it  is  a  bit  worse  since  a  touch 
o'  the  sun  he  had  a  year  or  two  ago.  He's  off  his  head 
about  an  Ouled  Nail  —  don't  know  whether  she  came  here 
because  of  him,  or  whether  he  picked  her  up  at  Touggourt, 
but  the  story  is,  he  could  o'  got  away  before  now,  with 
his  bloomin'  caravan,  on  that  d  —  d  fool  expedition  of  his 
you  read  of  in  the  papers,  only  he  couldn't  bring  himself 
to  leave  this  Ahmara,  or  whatever  her  crack-jaw  name  is. 
The  chap  that  was  talkin'  to  me  says  she's  the  handsomest 
creature  you'd  see  in  a  lifetime,  an'  she's  going  to  dance 
to-night  to  spite  Stanton." 

"To  spite  him?"  Max  repeated,  not  understanding. 

"Yes,  you  d  —  d  young  greenhorn!  Anybody 'd  know 
you  was  new  to  Africa!  These  girls,  when  they  get  to  be 
celebrated  for  their  looks  or  any  other  reason,  won't 
dance  in  public  as  a  general  thing.  They  leave  that  to 
the  common  ones,  who  need  to  do  something  to  attract. 
Anyhow,  Stanton  wouldn't  have  let  this  Ahmara  dance 
in  a  cafe  before  a  crowd  of  nomads  from  the  desert.  She 
lives  with  the  dancing  lot,  because  there's  some  law  or 


THE  MISSION  215 

other  about  that  for  these  girls,  but  that's  all,  till  to-night. 
There's  been  a  row,  my  old  pal  told  me,  because  Stanton 
gives  my  lady  the  tip  not  to  come  near  or  pretend  to 
know  him  while  his  friend  the  colonel  is  here.  She's  in 
such  a  beast  of  a  rage  she's  announced  to  the  owner  of 
the  cafe  that  she'll  dance  to-night;  and  I  bet  every  man  in 
Touggourt  except  Stanton  and  DeLisle'll  be  there.  You'll 
come,  won't  you?" 

"Yes,  I'll  come,"  said  Max.  He  was  ashamed  of 
himself  for  so  readily  believing  the  scandal  about  Stanton, 
yet  he  did  believe  it.  Stanton  had  struck  him  as  the 
type  of  man  who  would  stop  at  nothing  he  wanted  to  do. 
And  Max  was  ashamed,  also,  because  he  felt  an  involun- 
tary rush  of  pleasure  in  thinking  evil  of  Stanton.  He 
knew  what  that  meant.  He  had  been  jealous  of  Stanton 
at  Algiers,  and  he  supposed  he  was  mean  enough  to  be 
jealous  of  him  still.  If  Sanda  knew  the  truth,  would  she 
be  disgusted  and  cease  to  care  for  her  hero,  her  "Sir 
Knight?"  Max  wondered.  But  perhaps  she  would 
only  be  sad,  and  forgive  him  in  her  heart.  Girls  were 
often  very  strange  about  such  things.  Max,  however, 
could  not  forgive  Stanton  for  ignoring  the  exquisite 
blossom  of  love  that  might  be  his,  and  grasping  instead 
some  wild  scarlet  flower  of  the  desert  not  fit  to  be  touched 
by  a  hand  that  had  pressed  Sanda's  little  fingers.  He  did 
not  know  whether  or  not  to  be  equally  ashamed  of  the 
curiosity  which  made  him  say  to  Pelle  that  he  would 
see  the  dancer;  but  he  yielded  to  it. 

Already  the  great  bare  cafe  was  filling  up.  In  the  dim 
yellow  light  of  lamps  that  hung  from  the  ceiling,  or 
branched  out  from  the  smoky,  white-washed  walls,  the 


216  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

throng  of  dark  men  in  white  burnouses,  crowding  the 
long  benches  or  sitting  on  the  floor,  was  like  a  company  of 
ghosts.  Their  shadows  waved  fantastically  along  the 
walls  as  they  strode  noiselessly  in,  wild  as  spirits  dancing 
to  the  voice  of  their  master  Satan,  the  seductive  raita. 
At  one  end  of  the  room  sat  the  musicians,  all  giant  negroes, 
the  scars  and  tattoo  marks  on  their  sweating  black  faces 
giving  them  a  villainous  look  in  the  wavering  light. 
They  were  playing  the  bendir,  the  tomtom,  the  Arab 
flute,  as  well  as  the  raita;  but  the  raita  laughed  the  other 
music  down. 

This  cafe  was  celebrated  for  the  youth  and  beauty  of  its 
dancers,  and  one  after  another  delicate  little  sad-faced 
girls,  almost  children,  danced  and  waved  gracefully  their 
thin  arms  tinkling  with  silver  bracelets,  but  the  ever- 
increasing  crowd  of  Arabs  and  French  officers  and  soldiers 
(tourists  there  were  none  at  that  time  of  year)  scarcely 
troubled  to  look  at  the  dainty  figures.  They  were  waiting, 
eager-eyed.  If  Max  had  not  known  beforehand  that 
something  was  expected,  he  would  have  guessed  it.  At 
last  she  came,  the  great  desert  dancer  said  to  be  the 
most  beautiful  Ouled  Nail  of  her  generation. 

Max  did  not  see  how  or  whence  she  arrived,  but  he 
heard  the  rustling  and  indrawing  of  breaths  that  heralded 
her  coming.  And  then  she  was  there,  in  the  square  left 
open  for  the  dancing.  All  the  light  in  the  room  seemed 
to  focus  upon  her,  so  did  she  scintillate  from  head  to  foot 
with  spangles.  Even  he  felt  a  throb  of  excitement  as  the 
tall,  erect  figure  stood  in  the  space  between  the  benches, 
eying  the  audience  from  under  a  long  veil  of  green  tissue 
almost  covered  with  sparkling  bits  of  gold  and  silver. 


THE  MISSION  217 

On  her  head  she  wore  a  high  golden  crown,  and  under  the 
green  veil  fell  a  long  square  shawl  of  some  material  which 
seemed  woven  entirely  of  gold.  Her  dress  was  scarlet 
as  poppy  petals,  and  she  appeared  to  be  draped  in  many 
layers  of  thin  stuff  that  flashed  out  metallic  gleams. 
For  a  long  moment  she  stood  motionless.  Then,  when 
she  had  made  her  effect,  suddenly  she  threw  up  her  veil. 
Winding  it  around  her  arm,  she  snatched  it  off  her  head, 
and  paused  again,  unsmiling,  statue-still,  except  for  her 
immense  dark  eyes,  encircled  with  kohl,  which  darted 
glances  of  pride  and  defiance  round  the  silent  room. 
Perhaps  she  was  looking  for  some  one  whom  she  hah* 
expected  might  be  there.  Max  felt  the  long-lashed  eyes 
fix  themselves  on  him.  Then,  receiving  no  response, 
they  passed  on  and  shot  a  fiery  challenge  into  the  eyes 
of  a  young  caid  in  a  gold-embroidered  black  cloak,  who 
bent  forward  from  his  carpeted  bench  in  a  dream  of 
admiration. 

She  was  perfect  in  her  way,  a  living  statue  of  pale 
bronze,  with  the  eyes  of  a  young  tigress  and  the  mouth  of 
a  passionate  child.  The  gold  crown,  secured  with  a 
scarf  of  glittering  gauze,  the  rows  of  golden  coins  that 
hung  from  her  looped  black  braids  over  her  bosom  and 
down  to  the  huge  golden  buckle  at  her  loosely  belted  waist, 
gave  her  the  look  of  an  idol  come  to  life  and  escaped  from 
some  shrine  of  an  eastern  temple.  As  she  moved,  to 
begin  the  promised  dance,  she  exhaled  from  her  body  and 
hair  and  floating  draperies  strange,  intoxicating  perfumes 
which  seemed  to  change  with  her  motions  —  perfumes  of 
sandalwood  and  ambergris  and  attar-of-rose. 

For  the  first  time  Max  understood  the  meaning  of  the 


218  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

Ouled  Nail  dance.  This  child-woman  of  the  desert,  with 
her  wicked  eyes  and  sweet  mouth,  made  it  a  pantomime  of 
love  in  its  first  timid  beginnings,  its  fears  and  hesitations, 
its  final  self-abandon  and  rapture.  Ahmara  was  a  dan- 
gerous rival  for  a  daughter  of  Europe  with  such  a  man  as 
Richard  Stanton. 

When  she  had  danced  once,  she  refused  to  indulge  the 
audience  again,  but  staring  scorn  at  the  company,  ac- 
cepted a  cup  of  coffee  from  the  handsome  young  caid  in 
the  black  mantle.  She  sat  beside  him  with  a  fierce  air  of 
bravado,  and  ignored  every  one  else,  as  though  the  dimly 
lit  room  in  which  her  spangles  flamed  was  empty  save 
for  their  two  selves.  So  she  would  have  sat  by  Max  if 
he  had  given  back  glance  for  glance;  but  he  pushed  his 
way  out  quickly  when  Ahmara's  dance  was  over,  and 
drew  in  long,  deep  breaths  of  desert  air,  sweet  with  wild 
thyme,  before  he  dared  let  himself  even  think  of  Sanda. 
Sanda,  who  loved  Stanton  —  with  this  recompense ! 

As  he  walked  back  to  camp,  to  take  what  rest  he  could 
before  the  early  start,  he  met  a  sergeant  of  his  company, 
a  tall  Russian,  supposed  to  be  a  Nihilist,  who  had  saved 
himself  from  Siberia  by  finding  sanctuary  in  the  Legion. 

"I  have  sent  two  men  to  look  for  you,"  he  said.  "The 
colonel  wants  you.  Go  to  his  tent  at  once." 

Max  went,  and  at  the  tent  door  met  Richard  Stanton 
coming  out.  Max  recognized  his  figure  rather  than  his 
features,  for  the  light  was  at  his  back.  It  shone  into  the 
Legionnaire's  face  as  he  stepped  aside  to  let  the  explorer 
pass,  but  Stanton's  eyes  rested  on  the  corporal  of  the 
Legion  without  interest  or  recognition.  The  colonel 
had  just  bidden  him  good-bye,  and  he  strode  away  with 


THE  MISSION  219 

long,  nervous  strides.  "Will  he  go  to  the  cafe  and  see 
Ahmara  with  the  caid?"  The  thought  flashed  through 
Max's  mind,  but  he  had  no  time  to  finish  it.  Colonel 
DeLisle  was  calling  him  into  the  tent. 

The  only  light  was  a  lantern  with  a  candle  in  it;  yet 
saluting,  Max  saw  at  once  that  the  colonel's  face  was 
troubled. 

"Have  I  done  anything  I  oughtn't  to  have  done?"  he 
questioned  himself  anxiously,  but  the  first  words  reassured 
as  much  as  they  surprised  him. 

"Corporal  St.  George,  I  sent  for  you  because  you  are 
the  only  one  among  my  men  of  whom  I  can  ask  the  favour 
I'm  going  to  ask." 

"A  favour  —  from  me  to  you,  my  Colonel?"  Max 
echoed,  astonished. 

"Yes.  You  asked  me  for  one  the  other  night,  and  I 
granted  it  because  it  was  easy,  but  this  is  different. 
This  is  very  hard.  If  you  do  the  thing,  you  will  lose 
the  march  and  the  fight  which  we  may  come  in  for  at  the 
end.  Is  there  anything  that  could  make  up  to  you  for  such 
a  sacrifice  ?" 

"But,  my  Colonel,"  answered  Max,  "you  have  only  to 
give  me  your  orders,  and  whatever  they  may  be  I  shall 
be  happy  to  carry  them  out."  He  spoke  firmly,  yet  he 
could  not  hide  the  fact  that  this  was  a  blow.  He  had 
looked  forward  to  the  march,  hard  as  it  might  be,  and  to 
the  excitement  at  the  end  as  a  thirsty  man  looks  forward 
to  a  draught  of  water. 

"But  I  am  not  going  to  give  you  any  orders,"  said 
DeLisle.  "It  would  not  be  fair  or  right.  This  is  a 
private  matter.  I  have  just  received  a  letter  from  my 


220  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

daughter  with  rather  bad  news.  I  told  you  she  was 
staying  in  the  house  of  one  of  the  great  chiefs  of  the  south, 
a  friend  of  years'  standing,  who  has  a  daughter  of  her 
age.  I  needn't  give  you  details,  but  Sanda  has  unfor- 
tunately offended  this  man  in  perhaps  the  one  way  an 
Arab,  no  matter  how  enlightened,  cannot  forgive.  From 
what  she  tells  me  I  can't  wholly  blame  him  for  his  anger, 
but  —  it's  impossible  for  her  to  stop  longer  in  his  house. 
Not  that  she's  in  danger  —  no!  that's  incredible,  Ben 
Rdana  being  the  man  he  is.  An  Arab's  ideas  of  hospitality 
would  prevent  his  offering  to  send  a  guest  away,  no  matter 
how  much  he  might  want  to  be  rid  of  her.  Yet  I  can't 
endure  the  thought  of  asking  him  for  a  caravan  and  guard 
after  what  seems  to  have  happened.  You  realize  that  it  is 
impossible  for  me  to  go  myself.  My  duty  is  with  my 
regiment.  Once  before,  you  watched  over  my  daughter 
on  a  journey  —  watched  over  her  as  a  brother  might  watch 
over  a  sister.  That  is  why  I  ask,  as  a  favour  from  one 
man  to  another,  whether  you  would  be  willing  to  go  to 
the  Agha's  house  and  escort  my  daughter  here  to  Toug- 
gourt.  I  know  how  much  I  am  exacting  of  a  born  soldier 
like  yourself." 

"My  Colonel,  you  are  conferring  on  me  the  Cross  of 
the  Legion  of  Honour!"  Max  cried  out  impulsively. 

"  Then  you  accept  ?  " 

"  I  implore  you  to  accept  me  for  the  service." 

"But  do  you  thoroughly  understand  what  it  means? 
We  go  on  without  you.  It  will  be  hopeless  for  you  to  fol- 
low us.  I  give  you  eight  days'  leave,  which  will  be  ample 
time  for  the  engaging  of  a  small  caravan  —  three  or  four 
good  men  and  the  wife  of  one  to  act  as  servant  to  my 


THE  MISSION  «2i 

daughter  —  going  to  Ben  Raana's  place  at  Djazerta, 
arriving  again  at  Touggourt,  and  returning  to  Bel-Abb6s. 
I  shall  have  to  send  you  back  there,  you  see.  There's 
nothing  else  to  do." 

"I  understand,  my  Colonel.  But  though  I'm  sorry 
to  lose  the  experience,  I'd  rather  be  able  to  do  this 
for  you  and  for  Mademoiselle  DeLisle  than  anything 
else." 

"Thank  you.  That's  settled  then,  except  details. 
We'll  arrange  them  at  once,  for  you  must  get  off  to-morrow 
as  soon  as  possible  after  our  start.  Another  man  must 
be  appointed  in  your  place,  Corporal.  At  Sidi-bel-Abbes 
you  shall  have  special  work  while  we  are  gone.  There 
hasn't  been  much  time  for  thinking  since  I  got  the  news, 
but  I  have  thought  that  out.  At  first,  I  may  as  well  tell 
you,  my  idea  was  to  ask  Stanton  to  put  off  his  expedition 
and  go  to  Ben  Raana's.  But  —  something  I  heard  to- 
night turned  me  against  that  plan.  I  should  like  to  have 
another  man  with  you  out  of  the  regiment  in  case  of 
trouble.  Not  that  there  can  be  trouble !  But  I  shouldn't 
feel  justified  in  asking  for  a  second  volunteer.  All  the 
men  are  so  keen!  It's  bad  enough  to  send  one  away  on  a 
private  matter  of  my  own,  and  - 

In  his  flush  of  excitement  the  soldier  interrupted  his 
colonel. 

"Sir,  I  know  of  one!    My  friend  would  be  glad  to  go 

with  me!" 

"  You  speak  of  Garcia  again? " 
"Yes,  my  Colonel." 
"Are  you  sure  of  him?" 
"I  am  sure." 


222  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

"Very  well.  Talk  to  him  then.  Come  back  to  me 
afterward,  and  I'll  give  you  all  instructions." 

The  name  of  the  Agha  and  the  name  of  the  place  where 
he  lived  were  ringing  through  Max's  head.     Ben  Raana  — 
Djazerta! 

The  father  of  the  girl  Manoel  Valdez  loved  and  must 
save  was  the  Agha  of  Djazerta.  Now  Valdez  need  not 
desert! 


CHAPTER  VIII 

GONE 

THERE  was  keen  curiosity  and  even  jealousy  concerning 
the  errand  which  suddenly  separated  Corporal  St.  George 
and  his  chum  Juan  Garcia  from  the  march  of  the  Legion. 
None  of  their  late  comrades  knew  why  they  had  gone  or 
where,  unless  it  were  Four  Eyes,  who  swaggered  about 
looking  secretively  wise. 

"I  told  St.  George,"  said  he  to  such  young  men  of  the 
Tenth  as  were  admitted  to  the  honour  of  speech  with 
the  ex-champion,  "I  told  St.  George  to  fire  first  at  an 
Arab's  face  if  he  got  any  fighting.  That's  the  way!  The 
Arab  ain't  prepared,  and  he's  scared  blue  for  fear  of  his 
head  bein'  busted  off  his  body.  If  that  happens  only  his 
head  goes  to  Paradise  and  can't  have  any  fun.  Nobody 
but  old  Legionnaires  who've  seen  a  lot  of  service  have  got 
that  tip." 

Because  of  Four  Eyes'  hints  the  story  went  round  that 
St.  George  and  Garcia  had  been  sent  off  on  special  re- 
connaissance duty.  And  the  Legion  marched  as  only  the 
Legion  can,  with  its  heavy  kit,  its  wonderful  tricks  to 
cure  footsore  feet,  its  fierce  individual  desire  to  bear  more 
fatigue  than  is  human  to  endure,  its  wild  gayety,  its  moods 
of  sullen  brooding.  For  a  while  it  expected  to  see  St. 
George  and  Garcia  appear  as  suddenly  and  mysteriously 

223 


224  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

as  they  had  disappeared.  But  they  did  not  come  back. 
And  days  and  nights  passed  by;  so  at  last,  as  the 
Legion  drew  nearer  to  El  Gadhari,  the  absent  pair 
were  talked  of  no  more.  There  was  much  to  think  of 
and  to  suffer,  and  it  was  not  strange  if  they  were  half- 
forgotten  except  by  two  men:  one  who  knew  the  secret 
and  one  who  pretended  to  know:  Colonel  DeLisle  and 
Four  Eyes. 

When  Corporal  St.  George  arrived  at  the  oasis  town 
of  Djazerta  he  had  with  him  in  his  small  caravan  no  other 
man  in  the  uniform  of  the  Legion.  He  had  only  camel- 
drivers  in  white  or  brown  burnouses,  nomads  who  live 
in  tents,  and  whose  womenfolk  go  unveiled  without  losing 
the  respect  of  men.  They  had  come  from  the  black  tents 
outside  Touggourt,  all  but  one,  who  joined  the  party 
after  it  had  started,  following  on  a  fast  camel.  He  was 
a  dark-faced  man  like  the  rest,  and  wore  such  garments 
as  the  others  wore,  only  less  shabby  than  theirs,  and  none 
but  the  leader  knew  him  or  why  he  had  come.  The 
Arab  fashion  of  covering  the  body  heavily,  and  especially 
of  protecting  the  mouth  in  days  of  heat  as  well  as  cold, 
was  observed  religiously  by  this  tall,  grave  person.  The 
one  woman  of  the  band,  Khadra,  wife  of  the  chief  camel- 
driver,  wondered  if  the  stranger  had  any  disfigurement; 
but  her  husband  smiled  a  superior  smile,  remarking  that 
women  have  room  in  their  minds  only  for  curiosity  about 
what  can  never  concern  them.  As  for  the  newcomer,  he 
was  as  other  men,  though  not  as  pleasant  a  companion 
as  some.  According  to  his  own  account,  he  had  been 
born  in  Djazerta,  though  he  had  lived  in  many  places  and 


GONE  225 

learned  French  and  Spanish  in  order  to  make  money  as 
an  interpreter. 

When  the  caravan  reached  Djazerta  they  found  the 
oasis  town  indulging  in  festivities  because  of  the  marriage 
of  the  Agha's  daughter.  The  customary  week  of  feasting 
and  rejoicing  was  at  its  height,  but,  to  the  disappointment 
of  every  one,  the  bride  and  all  the  Agha's  family  had  in  the 
midst  of  the  celebrations  suddenly  gone  out  to  the  douar, 
the  desert  encampment  of  the  tribe  over  which  Ben  Raana 
ruled  as  chief.  This  was  unprecedented  for  the  wedding 
of  great  personages  that  the  end  of  the  entertainment 
should  take  place  in  the  douar;  but  it  was  said  that  the 
bride  was  ill  with  over-excitement,  and  rather  than  put 
off  the  marriage,  her  father  had  decided  to  try  the  effect 
of  desert  air. 

This  was  the  news  which  was  told  to  Max  at  the  Agha's 
gates  after  his  forced  march  from  Touggourt.  It  was 
translated  for  him  into  French  by  his  interpreter,  the 
dark-faced  man  who  covered  his  mouth  even  more  closely 
than  did  the  dwellers  in  the  black  tents  near  Touggourt; 
for  Max,  though  he  had  studied  Arabic  of  nights  in  the 
Legion's  library,  and  taken  lessons  from  Garcia,  could 
not  yet  understand  the  desert  dialects  when  spoken 
quickly.  An  interpreter  was  a  real  necessity  for  him  on  a 
desert  journey  with  Arabs  to  command,  and  as  the  two 
talked  together  outside  the  open  gate  in  the  high  white 
wall,  discussing  the  situation,  neither  the  Agha's  men  nor 
any  man  of  the  caravan  could  understand  a  word.  The 
language  they  used  was  a  mystery.  French,  English, 
Spanish  —  all  were  jargons  to  these  people  of  the  southern 
desert. 


226  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

"At  the  douar!"  Max  repeated.     "  Where  is  it ? " 

"Not  twenty  miles  away,"  answered  Manoel,  keeping 
all  feeling  out  of  his  voice,  as  an  interpreter  should. 
"But  it's  between  here  and  Touggourt.  Not  exactly 
on  the  way,  still  we  could  have  reached  it  by  taking  a 
detour  of  a  few  kilometres  off  the  caravan  track  and 
saved  hours,  precious  hours." 

"Never  mind,"  said  Max,  worried  though  he  was 
because  of  the  delay  that  meant  something  to  him,  if  not 
as  much  as  to  Manoel.  "Never  mind.  We  shall  be  in 
time  yet.  They  say  the  festivities  are  only  half  over. 
That  means  she  isn't  married.  Buck  up!  I  know  this 
is  a  shock;  but  it  isn't  a  surprise  that  the  wedding  feast 
should  be  on.  You've  been  expecting  that.  You've 
even  been  afraid  it  might  be  all  over." 

"But  something  has  happened,  or  they  wouldn't  have 
taken  her  away,"  Manoel  said. 

"Perhaps  she  tried  to  escape,"  Max  suggested.  "Would 
it  be  harder  for  her  to  do  that  at  the  douar  than  here?" 

"  In  a  way,  yes.  Here  she  might  be  hidden  for  a  while 
in  some  house  of  the  village:  it's  a  rabbit  warren,  as  you 
can  see.  Whereas,  round  the  douar  lies  the  desert  open 
to  all  eyes.  Still,  it's  easier  to  get  out  of  a  tent  than  a 
house." 

"Well,  let's  be  off  and  see  for  ourselves,  instead  of 
guessing,"  proposed  his  friend  with  an  air  of  cheerfulness. 
Manoel  knew  the  errand  which  had  brought  Corporal  St. 
George  (and  incidentally  himself)  to  Djazerta  at  this 
eleventh  hour,  but  Max  and  he  had  never  spoken  together 
of  Colonel  DeLisle's  daughter  Sanda  except  casually,  as 
Ourieda's  guest.  Manoel,  his  thoughts  centred  upon  his 


GONE  227 

own  affairs,  had  no  idea  that  Mademoiselle  DeLisle  was 
personally  of  importance  in  St.  George's  life.  If  he  had 
seen  that  Max  was  anxious,  he  would  have  taken  the 
anxiety  for  sympathy  with  him,  or  else  the  nervousness  of 
a  keen  soldier  who  had  only  eight  days'  leave  and  small 
provision  for  delays. 

Having  finished  their  discussion,  they  politely  refused 
an  invitation,  in  the  absent  Agha's  name,  to  spend  the 
night  in  his  guest  house,  and  started  out  to  retrace  some 
kilometres  of  the  track  they  had  just  travelled.  This, 
thought  the  Agha's  head  gatekeeper,  was  a  foolish  de- 
cision, no  matter  how  pressing  might  be  the  soldier's  busi- 
ness with  Ben  Raana,  for  already  it  was  past  sunset,  and 
there  was  no  moon.  These  men  were  strangers,  and  could 
not  know  their  way  to  the  douar  except  as  it  was  described 
to  them.  But  what  could  one  expect?  Their  leader  was 
a  Roumi,  a  Christian  dog,  and  all  such  were  fools  in  the 
eyes  of  God's  children  who  knew  that  the  lesson  of  life 
was  patience. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

WHAT   HAPPENED   AT   DAWN 

SAND  A  DELISLE'S  short  life  had  not  been  brilliantly  happy. 
She  had  known  the  ache  of  feeling  herself  unwanted  by  the 
only  two  human  beings  of  paramount  importance  in  her 
world:  her  almost  unknown  father,  and  her  adored  "Sir 
Knight"  and  hero  Richard  Stanton.  But  never  for 
more  than  a  few  hours  of  concentrated  pain,  like  those 
at  Algiers,  had  she  suffered  for  herself  as  she  suffered  for 
Ourieda. 

The  "Little  Rose,"  defenceless  against  the  men  who 
had  power  over  her  fate  (as  all  Arab  women  are  defence- 
less, unless  they  choose  death  instead  of  life),  appealed 
to  the  latent  motherhood  that  slept  in  the  heart  of  Sanda, 
as  in  the  heart  of  every  normal  girl:  appealed  to  the  ro- 
mance in  her:  appealed  to  the  sympathy  born  of  her  own 
love  for  Stanton,  which  seemed  as  hopeless  as  Ourieda's 
love  for  Manoel  Valdez.  Would  Manoel  come  in  answer 
to  one  of  those  secretly  sent  letters?  Would  anything 
happen  to  save  Ourieda  from  Tahar?  The  girl  brought 
up  to  be  a  Roman  Catholic  prayed  to  the  Blessed  Virgin. 
The  girl  brought  up  to  be  a  Mohammedan  prayed  to 
Allah.  And  the  prayers  of  both,  ascending  from  different 
altars,  like  smoke  of  incense  in  a  Christian  church  and  in 
a  mosque,  rose  toward  the  same  heaven.  Yet  no  help 

228 


WHAT  HAPPENED  AT  DAWN  223 

came;  and  the  summer  days  slipped  by,  until  at  last  it  was 
September,  the  month  fixed  for  the  wedding. 

With  the  subtlety  and  soft  cowardice  of  Mussulman 
women,  young  or  old,  Ourieda  said  no  word  to  her  father 
of  her  loathing  for  Tahar.  When  Sanda  begged  her  to 
tell  him  at  least  so  much  of  the  truth  and  trust  to  hi«  love, 
the  girl  replied  always  dully  and  hopelessly  in  the  same 
way:  it  would  be  useless.  He  was  very  fond  of  her,  for 
her  dead  mother's  sake  and  her  own.  But  the  fire  of 
youth  had  died  down  in  his  heart.  He  had  forgotten 
how  he  felt  when  love  was  the  greatest  thing  on  earth. 
Besides,  his  own  wife  had  been  the  exception  to  all  woman- 
hood, in  his  eyes.  The  child  she  had  left  had  been  his 
dear  plaything,  his  consolation.  Now  he  counted  upon 
her  to  fulfil  the  ambitions  of  his  life,  thwarted  so  far, 
because  she  had  been  a  daughter.  To  have  his  nephew, 
his  heir  by  law,  become  the  father  of  his  grandsons,  was 
his  best  hope  now,  and  nothing  except  Ourieda's  death 
or  Tahar's  death  would  make  him  give  it  up. 

"  My  dear  nurse  Embarka  would  kill  Tahar  for  me  if  she 
could  get  at  him,"  the  "  Little  Rose  "  said  one  day,  calmly. 
"That  would  end  my  trouble,  but  she  cannot  reach  him, 
and  there  is  no  one  she  can  trust  among  those  who  cook 
or  serve  food  in  the  men's  part  of  our  house. " 

Sanda  was  struck  with  horror,  but  Ourieda  could  not  at 
first  even  understand  why  she  was  shocked.  "  If  a  viper 
were  ready  to  strike  you  or  one  you  loved,  would  you  think 
harm  of  killing  it?"  she  asked.  "Tahar  is  venomous  as 
a  viper.  I  should  give  thanks  to  Allah  if  he  were  dead, 
no  matter  how  he  died.  But  since  Allah  does  not  will 
his  death,  I  must  pray  for  courage  to  die  myself  rather 


230  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

than  be  false  to  Manoel,  who  has  perhaps  himself  gone  to 
Paradise,  since  he  does  not  answer  when  I  call;  and  if 
a  woman  can  have  a  soul,  I  may  belong  to  him  there. " 

Sanda  had  forgiven  her,  realizing  if  not  understanding 
fully  the  difference  between  a  heart  of  the  East  and  a 
heart  of  the  West,  and  loving  the  Arab  girl  with  unabated 
ove.  Up  to  the  hour  when  Ben  Raana  came  into  the 
garden  of  the  harem  and  bade  his  daughter  praise  Allah 
because  her  wedding  day  was  at  hand,  Sanda  hoped,  and 
begged  Ourieda  to  hope,  that  "  something  might  happen. " 
But  even  to  her  that  seemed  the  end,  for  the  girl  listened 
with  meekness  and  offered  no  objection  except  that  the 
hot  weather  had  stolen  her  strength:  she  was  not  well. 

"Let  the  excitement  of  being  a  bride  bring  back  thy 
health,  like  wine  in  thy  veins,  Little  Rose, "  said  the  Agha, 
speaking  in  French  out  of  compliment  to  the  guest,  and 
to  show  her  that  there  was  no  family  secret  under  dis- 
cussion which  she  might  not  share. 

"It  is  not  exciting  to  marry  my  cousin  Tahar, " 
Ourieda  sighed  rather  than  protested.  "He  is  an  ugly 
man,  dreadful  for  a  girl  to  look  upon  as  her  husband. " 

"Thou  makest  me  feel  that  thine  aunt  is  right  when  she 
tells  me  I  was  wrong  ever  to  let  thee  look  upon  him  or  any 
man  except  thy  father,"  the  Agha  answered  quickly, 
with  a  sudden  light  behind  the  darkness  of  his  eyes  like 
the  flash  of  a  sword  in  the  night.  Sanda,  knowing  what 
she  knew,  guessed  at  a  hidden  meaning  in  the  words. 
He  was  remembering  Manoel,  and  wishing  his  daughter 
to  see  that  he  had  never  for  a  moment  forgotten  the  thing 
that  had  passed.  The  Agha,  despite  his  eagle  face,  had 
been  invariably  so  gentle  when  with  the  women  of  his 


WHAT  HAPPENED  AT  DAWN  231 

household,  and  had  seemed  so  cultured,  so  instructed  in 
all  the  tenets  of  the  twentieth  century,  that  Sanda  had 
sometimes  wondered  if  his  daughter  were  not  needlessly 
afraid  of  him.  But  the  unsheathing  of  that  sword  of 
light  convinced  her  of  Ourieda's  wisdom.  The  girl  knew 
her  father.  If  she  dared  to  urge  any  further  her  dislike 
of  Tahar  he  would  believe  it  was  because  of  Manoel,  and 
hurry  rather  than  delay  the  wedding.  Illness  was  the 
only  possible  plea,  and  even  to  that  Ben  Raana  seemed 
to  attach  little  importance.  Marriage  meant  change  and 
new  interests.  It  should  be  a  tonic  for  a  Rose  drooping 
in  the  garden  of  her  father's  harem. 

"Thou  seest  for  thyself  that  it  is  no  use  to  plead," 
whispered  Ourieda  when  her  father  had  gone,  and  Leila 
Mabrouka  and  her  woman,  Taous,  on  the  overhang- 
ing balcony,  were  loudly  discussing  details  of  the  feast. 
"Now,  at  last,  is  the  time  to  tell  the  thing  I  waited  to  tell, 
till  the  worst  should  come:  the  thing  thou  couldst  do  for 
me,  which  would  be  even  harder  to  do,  and  take  more 
courage  — oh!  far  more  courage! —  than  leaving  the 
letters  open." 

The  look  in  Ourieda's  eyes  of  topaz  brown  was  more 
tragic,  more  strangely  fatal  than  Sanda  had  ever  seen  it 
yet,  even  on  the  roof  in  the  sunset  when  the  story  of 
Manoel  had  been  told.  The  heart  of  her  friend  felt  like 
a  clock  that  is  running  down.  She  was  afraid  to  know  the 
thing  which  Ourieda  wanted  her  to  do;  yet  she  must  know 
-  and  make  up  her  mind.  It  seemed  as  if  there  were 
nothing  she  could  refuse,  still 

"What  is  it  you  mean?"  she  whispered  back,  the  two 
heads  leaning  together  over  a  frame  of  bright  embroidery 


£32  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

in  Ourieda's  lap,  and  the  tinkle  of  the  fountain  drowning 
the  soft  voices,  even  if  the  chatter  at  the  door  of  Leila 
Mabrouka's  room  above  had  not  covered  the  secret  words. 

"  When  I  said  there  was  a  thing  I  would  ask,  if  the  worst 
came,"  Ourieda  repeated,  "I  meant  one  of  two  things. 
If  thou  wilt  do  either,  they  are  for  thee  to  choose  between. 
But  thou  wilt  think  them  both  terrible,  and  my  only  hope 
is  that  thou  lovest  me." 

"You  know  I  do,"  Sanda  breathed. 

"  Enough  to  do  what  I  am  too  poor  a  coward  to  do  for 
myself,  and  Embarka  has  refused  to  do?" 

"Not  —  oh,  no,  no,  you  can't  mean 

"Yes,  thou  hast  guessed.  No  one  need  ever  suspect. 
I  would  think  of  a  way.  I've  thought  of  one  already. 
There'd  be  no  pain  for  me.  And  yet  —  I  suppose  because 
I  am  young  and  my  blood  runs  hot  in  my  veins,  I  fear  — 
I  am  sure  —  I  couldn't,  when  the  moment  came,  do  it 
myself." 

"Even  for  you,  I  can't  be  a  murderess,"  Sanda  said 
miserably,  almost  apologetically. 

"It  is  thy  strange  Christian  superstition  which  makes 
thee  call  it  that.  It  would  be  our  fate;  and  thou  couldst 
go  away  and  be  happy,  feeling  thou  hadst  saved  me  from 
life  which  is  worse  than  death  sometimes.  Still,  if  thou 
wilt  not,  there  is  the  other  thing.  Will  thou  help  me  to 
escape?  " 

"  Oh,  yes ! "  cried  Sanda. 

"  WTait  till  thou  hast  heard  my  plan.  Maybe  thou  wilt 
change  thy  mind." 

"  I  feel  sure  I  shan't  change  it." 

"But  the  plan  may  make  thee  hate  me,  and  think  I 


WHAT  HAPPENED  AT  DAWN  233 

am  cruel  and  selfish,  caring  for  no  one  except  myself. 
Besides,  there  will  be  lies  to  tell;  and  I  know  thou  dost 
not  like  lies,  though  to  me  they  seem  no  harm  if  they  are 
to  do  good  in  the  end." 

"Tell  me  the  plan." 

Ourieda  told  it,  while  overhead  on  the  balcony  her 
Aunt  Mabrouka  —  Tahar's  mother  —  chatted  of  the  mer- 
chants in  Djazerta  who  sold  silks  from  Tunis  and  per- 
fumes from  Algiers. 

The  plan  was  very  hateful,  very  dangerous  and  treach- 
erous. But  —  it  was  to  save  Ourieda.  The  Arab  girl 
proposed  to  Sanda  that  she  should  pretend  to  have  a 
letter  from  Colonel  DeLisle  calling  her  back  at  once  to 
Sidi-bel-Abbes,  not  giving  her  even  time  to  wait  for  the 
wedding.  Ben  Raana  would  reluctantly  consent  to  her 
going :  he  would  give  her  an  escort  —  not  Tahar,  because 
Tahar  must  stay  for  his  marriage  —  but  some  trust- 
worthy men  of  his  goum,  and  good  camels.  On  the  camel 
prepared  for  her  would  be  of  course  a  bassourah with  heavy 
curtains:  probably  the  one  in  which  she  had  already 
travelled.  It  went  also  without  saying  that  Sanda  would 
make  the  journey  in  Arab  dress,  such  as  she  had  worn 
during  her  visit.  Ourieda  would  pretend  to  be  ill  with 
grief  because  her  friend  must  leave  her  at  such  a  time; 
already  she  had  prepared  the  Agha's  mind  by  complaining 
of  weakness.  She  would  take  to  her  bed  and  refuse  to 
see  any  one  but  her  nurse,  Embarka.  Leila  Mabrouka, 
glad  to  be  rid  of  the  Roumia  girl  (of  whom,  beneath  her 
politeness,  she  had  always  disapproved), and  hating  illness, 
would  gladly  keep  out  of  the  way  for  two  or  three  days, 
while  the  wedding  preparations  went  on.  It  would  be 


234  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

easy,  or  almost  easy,  if  no  accident  happened,  Ourieda 
argued,  for  her  to  go  away  veiled  and  swathed  in  the  bas- 
sourah,  while  Sanda  lay  in  bed  in  a  darkened  room.  At 
Touggourt  the  veiled  lady  would  be  met  by  that  Captain 
Amaranthe  and  his  wife  of  whom  Sanda  had  spoken: 
they  must  be  written  to  immediately  and  told  to  expect 
Mademoiselle  DeLisle.  Then  trouble  might  come,  if 
they  suspected,  but  perhaps  they  would  not,  if  Sanda 
wrote  that  she  had  been  ill  with  influenza  and  had  nearly 
lost  her  voice.  They  might  send  her  off  by  train,  guessing 
nothing,  or,  if  they  did  guess,  she  must  throw  herself  on 
Madame  Amaranthe's  mercy.  No  woman  with  a  heart 
would  give  her  up!  And  if  the  plan  succeeded,  instead 
of  going  to  Sidi-bel-Abbes  she  would  go  to  Oran  where 
she  could  find  a  ship  that  would  take  her  to  Marseilles. 
Her  jewels  (some  which  had  been  her  mother's,  and 
many  new  ones  given  by  her  father)  would  pay  the  ex- 
penses and  keep  her  in  France,  hidden  from  Ben  Raana 
and  beyond  his  power,  until  perhaps  Manoel  found  her 
through  advertisements  she  would  put  into  all  the  French 
papers. 

As  for  Sanda,  the  result  for  her  when  the  trick  was 
discovered  (as  it  ought  not  to  be  until  Ourieda  had  got 
out  of  Algeria)  would  be  simple.  She  was  the  daughter 
of  Ben  R£ana's  friend,  a  soldier  of  importance  in  the  eyes 
of  France.  Colonel  DeLisle  had  entrusted  her  to  the 
Agha's  care,  and  she  could  not  be  punished  as  though 
she  were  an  Arab  woman.  If  Embarka  or  any  member 
of  Ben  Raana's  household  so  betrayed  him  and  his  dearest 
hopes  the  right  revenge  would  be  death,  and  no  one 
outside  would  ever  hear  what  had  been  done,  for  trage- 


WHAT  HAPPENED  AT  DAWN  235 

dies  of  the  harem  are  sacred.  To  Mademoiselle  DeLisle, 
however,  her  host  could  do  nothing,  except  send  her  with 
a  safe  escort  out  of  his  home.  And  that  would  be  her 
one  desire. 

At  first  it  seemed  to  Sanda  that  she  could  not  do  what 
Ourieda  asked.  With  tears  she  said  no,  they  must  think 
of  some  other  way.  And  the  Little  Rose  did  not  argue 
or  plead.  She  answered  only  that  she  had  thought,  and 
there  was  no  other  way  but  the  one  which  Sanda  had 
refused.  Then  she  was  silent,  and  the  light  died  out  of  her 
eyes,  leaving  them  dull,  almost  glazed,  as  if  her  soul,  that 
had  been  gazing  through  the  windows,  had  gone  to  some 
dark  sepulchre  of  hope. 

It  was  because  of  this  silence  and  this  look  that  Sanda 
changed  her  mind,  after  one  day  and  night,  all  of  which 
she  spent  —  vainly  —  in  trying  to  find  another  plan.  A 
letter  did  come  from  her  father,  as  she  and  Ourieda  had 
hoped  it  might  (Colonel  DeLisle,  while  still  at  Sidi-bel- 
Abbes,  found  time  to  scribble  off  a  few  lines  to  his  girl 
for  each  camel  post  that  travelled  through  the  dunes 
from  Touggourt  to  Djazerta),  and  in  sickness  of  heart 
Sanda  pretended  that  she  was  wanted  "at  home."  The 
Agha  was  grieved  and  astonished,  but,  great  Arab  gen- 
tleman that  he  was,  would  have  cut  out  his  tongue 
rather  than  question  his  guest  when  no  information  was 
volunteered.  He  asked  only  if  she  had  been  in  all  ways 
kindly  treated  in  his  house;  and  when  with  swimming 
eyes  she  answered  "yes,"  it  was  enough.  The  caravan 
was  prepared  to  take  her  to  Touggourt,  where  she  would 
be  met  by  her  former  travelling  companions,  Captain 
Amaranthe  and  his  wife;  and  the  Agha  assured  her  that 


236  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

only  the  marriage  —  an  event  unlucky  to  postpone  —  pre- 
vented him  from  sending  his  nephew  as  before,  or  going 
himself  as  her  escort. 

The  start  was  to  be  made  very  early  in  the  morning,  be- 
fore dawn,  in  order  that  the  caravan  might  rest  during  the 
two  hours  of  greatest  heat  without  shortening  the  day's 
march;  and  this  was  in  the  girl's  favour.  Sanda  had  said 
farewell  to  Leila  Mabrouka  the  night  before,  that  the  lady 
need  not  wake  before  her  usual  hour:  but  not  only  did 
she  wake;  she  rose,  very  quietly,  and  saw  Einbarka  tip- 
toeing along  the  balcony  from  Sanda's  room  to  Ourieda's 
with  the  new  gandourah  and  extra  thick  veil  she  herself 
had  given  the  guest  to  travel  in.  When  Embarka  was 
out  of  the  way  Leila  Mabrouka,  in  her  night  robe,  pattered 
softly  to  Sanda's  closed  door  and  knocked.  No  answer. 
She  peeped  in  and  saw  the  room  empty. 

Sanda  might  have  gone  to  bid  Ourieda  good-bye  at  the 
last  minute:  that  would  be  natural;  and  it  was  the  last 
minute,  because  the  sky  was  changing  its  night  purple 
for  the  gray  of  dawn,  and  from  the  distant  courtyard 
Leila  Mabrouka  had  heard  some  time  ago  the  grunting  of 
the  camels.  (She  was  a  light  sleeper  always:  and  after- 
ward she  told  Ben  Raana  and  Tahar  that  Allah  had  doubt- 
less sent  some  messenger  to  touch  her  shoulder  at  this 
hour  of  fate.)  She  had  had  no  definite  suspicions  until 
that  moment,  except  that  she  was  always  vaguely  sus- 
picious of  the  girls'  confidences;  but  suddenly  an  idea 
leaped  into  her  mind,  the  suggestion  of  just  such  a  trick  as 
she  herself  would  have  been  subtle  enough  to  play.  If 
the  Roumia  wrent  to  the  room  of  her  friend  to  disturb  her 
(though  Ourieda  had  been  ailing  for  days),  why  did  she 


WHAT  HAPPENED  AT  DAWN  237 

not  go  already  dressed,  by  Embarka's  help,  for  the  start, 
since  it  was  time  to  set  out,  and  the  Agha  must  be  waiting 
in  the  courtyard  to  bid  Allah  speed  his  guest?  There 
might  be  a  simple  and  innocent  reason  for  what  struck 
Leila  Mabrouka  as  mysterious,  but  she  determined  to 
find  out.  With  suddenness  she  flung  open  the  door  of 
Ourieda's  room  (which  Embarka,  believing  Leila  Ma- 
brouka safely  asleep,  had  not  locked),  and  by  the  light  of 
a  French  lamp  she  saw  the  old  nurse  draping  Ourieda  in 
the  Roumia's  veil.  In  Ourieda's  green  and  gold  bed  from 
Tunis  lay  Sanda  in  a  nightdress  of  Ourieda's  with  her 
head  wrapped  up  as  Ourieda's  was  often  wrapped  by  Em- 
barka as  a  cure  for  headache. 

Instantly  the  whole  plot  was  clear  to  the  mother  of 
Tahar.  She  saw  how  Ourieda  had  meant  to  go,  and  how 
Sanda  would  have  kept  her  place,  guarded  from  intrusion 
by  the  old  nurse,  until  the  fugitive  was  safely  out  of 
reach. 

Ourieda,  quick  of  mind  as  the  older  and  more  experi- 
enced woman,  explained  without  waiting  to  be  asked  that 
she  and  her  dearest  Sanda  had  exchanged  clothing,  just 
for  a  moment,  according  to  the  old  Arab  superstition  that 
garments  changed  between  those  who  love  have  the 
power  of  giving  some  quality  of  the  owner  to  the  friend. 
Sanda  said  nothing  at  all,  knowing  that  she  would  but 
make  matters  worse  by  speaking.  When  she  understood 
what  the  story  was  to  be  (she  had  given  hours  of  each  day 
during  the  past  months  to  learning  Arabic)  she  sat  up  in 
bed  and  begun  unwrapping  her  head  as  if  to  prepare  for 
the  journey,  now  that  time  pressed,  and  she  must  again 
put  on  her  own  things.  But  if  she  had  had  the  slightest 


238  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

hope  that  Leila  Mabrouka  might  be  deceived  by  Ourieda's 
plausible  excuse,  the  cold  glint  of  black  eyes  staring  at 
her  in  the  lamplight  would  have  stabbed  it  to  death. 

A  woman  of  Europe,  burning  with  rage  like  Mabrouka's, 
might  have  blurted  out  fierce  reproaches  or  insults;  but 
the  woman  of  the  harem  did  not  even  put  her  discovery 
into  words.  She  looked  at  Ourieda  and  the  Roumia, 
and  said  quietly:  "It  was  a  charming  idea  to  wear  each 
other's  clothes  so  that  each  might  have  something  of  the 
other  in  her  heart  forever.  Already  I  can  see  a  likeness. 
But  do  not  hurry  to  change  now.  I  came  to  say  that  for  a 
reason,  to  be  explained  later,  the  caravan  cannot  start 
to-day.  Our  Little  White  Moon  will  light  our  sky  for  a 
time  longer.  Come  with  me,  Embarka,  I  have  work  for 
thee.  These  dear  children  may  have  the  pleasure  of  dress- 
ing each  other." 

Ashy  pale  under  her  bronze  skin,  Embarka  obeyed 
without  protest,  throwing  one  look  at  her  beloved  mistress 
as  she  followed  Leila  Mabrouka  to  her  fate.  Her  great, 
dilated  eyes  said:  "Good-bye  forever,  oh,  thou  whom  I 
love,  and  for  whom  I  have  given  myself  without  regret." 

When  they  were  left  alone  the  girls  fell  into  each 
other's  arms  as  if  for  protection  against  some  terrible  fate 
coming  swiftly  to  destroy  them.  Though  the  September 
dawn  had  in  it  the  warmth  of  summer,  they  shivered  as 
they  clung  together. 

"It  is  all  over!"  Ourieda  said.     "Allah  is  against  me." 

"What  will  happen?"  asked  Sanda,  a  horror  of  the 
unknown  upon  her. 

"  Nothing  to  thee.     Do  not  be  afraid. " 

"I'm  not  afraid  for  myself.     I  am  thinking  of  you.'* 


WHAT  HAPPENED  AT  DAWN  239 

"For  me  this  is  the  end." 

"You  don't  mean  —  surely  your  father  will  not " 

"He  will  not  take  my  life.  He  will  take  from  me  his 
love.  And  I  shall  be  watched  every  instant  till  I  have 
been  given  to  Tahar.  I  shall  not  even  have  a  chance  to 
kill  myself  —  unless  I  do  it  now." 

"  Ourieda !  No  —  there's  hope  still.  Who  can  tell  — 
But  Ourieda  did  not  hear.  Suddenly  she  tore  herself 
free  from  Sanda's  arms,  and  running  to  one  of  the  carved 
cedarwood  doors  in  the  white  wrall  of  the  bedroom, 
opened  a  little  cupboard.  There,  fumbling  among  per- 
fumed parcels,  rolled  as  Arab  women  roll  their  garments, 
she  snatched  from  a  bundle  of  silk  a  small  stiletto  with  a 
jewelled  handle.  Sanda  had  seen  it  before,  and  had  been 
bidden  to  admire  its  rough,  square  emeralds  and  queerly 
shaped  pearls.  The  thing  had  belonged  to  Ourieda's 
mother,  and  had  been  given  to  the  daughter  by  the  Agha 
on  her  sixteenth  birthday,  nearly  a  year  ago.  Ben  Raana's 
Spanish  wife  had  worn  it  in  her  dark  hair;  but  Ben 
Raana's  daughter,  even  from  the  first,  had  thought  of  it 
for  another  purpose.  Last  night,  when  Embarka  had 
packed  the  jewels  among  Sanda's  things  for  the  secret 
journey,  Ourieda  had  kept  out  the  stiletto  in  case  of 
failure.  Now  it  was  ready  to  her  hand,  and  before  Sanda 
could  reach  her  the  point  of  its  thin  blade  pressed  the 
flesh  over  the  heart.  But  the  pin  prick  of  pain  as  the 
skin  broke  was  too  sharp  a  prophecy  of  anguish  for  the 
petted  child  who  knew  herself  physically  a  coward, 
gave  a  cry,  dropped  the  stiletto  as  if  the  handle  had  burnt 
her,  and,  stumbling  against  the  girl  who  tried  to  hold  her 
up,  fell  in  a  limp  heap  on  the  floor. 


240  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

There  was  no  time  to  hide  the  stiletto,  even  if  Sanda 
had  thought  to  do  so,  before  Taous,  Leila  Mabrouka's 
woman,  came  quietly  into  the  room.  No  doubt  Ma- 
brouka  had  meant  to  send  her,  but  had  not  told  the  girls, 
because  she  wished  her  servant  to  surprise  them.  Gather- 
ing up  Ourieda,  who  had  fainted,  or  seemed  to  faint,  the 
negress's  bright  eyes  spied  the  dagger.  Freeing  one  hand 
as  easily  as  if  Ourieda's  weight  had  been  that  of  a  baby, 
she  took  the  weapon  and  slipped  it  into  her  dress.  Whether 
she  meant  to  show  the  dagger  to  her  mistress,  or  to  keep 
it  for  herself,  who  could  say? 

Sanda  would  not  leave  Ourieda  when  the  girl  had  been 
laid  on  the  bed  by  Taous,  but  presently,  after  half  an 
hour's  absence,  Leila  Mabrouka  returned.  "  Thou  mayest 
go  now, "  said  the  formidable  woman.  "  We  who  love  and 
understand  her  will  restore  our  Rose  with  her  name's 
perfume,  which  has  the  power  of  bringing  back  lost 
senses.  Have  no  fear  for  her  health,  Little  Moon.  All 
will  be  well  with  our  sweet  bride.  Dress  thyself,  not  for 
a  journey,  but  for  a  visit  from  my  brother,  the  Agha,  who 
will  do  himself  the  honour  of  calling  upon  thee  when  thou 
art  ready  to  descend  to  our  reception-room.  Thou  being 
a  Roumia,  with  customs  different  to  ours,  may  receive 
him  alone,  otherwise  I  would  leave  our  Little  Rose  to 
Taous,  and  go  with  thee." 

Despite  the  unbroken  courtesy  of  Mabrouka's  manner, 
or  all  the  more  because  of  its  frozen  calm,  Sanda  was  sick 
with  a  deadly  fear.  She  was  not  afraid  that  the  Agha 
would  do  her  bodily  harm,  but  the  whole  world  seemed 
to  have  come  to  an  end  because  of  her  treachery.  She 
did  not  know  how  she  could  meet  his  eyes,  those  eyes 


WHAT  HAPPENED  AT  DAWN  241 

of  an  eagle,  after  what  she  had  tried  to  do.  She  was 
afraid  he  would  question  her  about  what  she  knew  of 
Ourieda's  secrets,  and  though  she  resolved  that  nothing 
should  make  her  speak,  her  heart  seemed  turning  to 
water. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  BEAUTY  DOCTOR 

"!F  MY  father  were  only  here!"  Sanda  said  as  she  went 
down  to  the  great  room  of  state  where  the  ladies  of  the 
Agha's  harem  received  their  few  visitors.  And  then  she 
thought  of  Maxime  St.  George,  her  soldier.  She  recalled 
the  night  when  she  had  been  afraid  of  the  storm,  and  he 
had  sat  by  her  through  the  long  hours.  Somehow,  she 
did  not  know  why,  it  helped  a  little  to  remember  that. 

Ben  Raana,  graver  and  sterner  than  she  had  seen  him, 
was  waiting  in  the  early  dawn  which  struck  out  bleak 
lights  from  the  dangling  prisms  of  the  big  French  chande- 
liers —  the  ugly  chandeliers  of  which  Leila  Mabrouka  was 
proud.  He  asked  no  questions;  and  somehow  that  seemed 
worse  than  the  ordeal  for  which  Sanda  had  braced  herself. 
The  Agha's  voice,  politely  speaking  French,  was  studiously 
gentle,  but  icy  contempt  was  in  his  dark  eyes  when  they 
were  not  deliberately  turned  from  the  trusted  guest  who 
had  betrayed  him.  He  said  he  had  summoned  her  to 
announce,  with  regret,  that,  owing  to  the  illness  of  the  man 
appointed  as  conductor  of  the  caravan,  it  would  not  be 
able  to  start  for  some  time.  At  present  there  was  no  other 
person  equally  trustworthy  who  could  be  spared.  "I 
am  responsible  to  thy  father  for  thy  safety,"  he  added. 
"And  though  we  poor  Arabs  are  behind  these  modern 

242 


THE  BEAUTY  DOCTOR  243 

times  in  many  ways,  we  would  die  rather  than  betray  a 
trust." 

That  was  a  stroke  well  aimed  under  the  roses  of  cour- 
tesy, and  Sanda  could  but  receive  it  in  silence.  She  had 
supposed  when  Leila  Mabrouka  spoke  of  the  caravan  not 
going  that  it  was  only  a  threat.  Her  expectation  was  to 
be  sent  out  of  the  house  at  once,  in  disgrace,  and  though 
her  soul  yearned  over  Ourieda,  all  that  was  timid  in  her 
pined  to  go.  It  was  surprising  —  if  anything  could  sur- 
prise her  then  —  to  hear  that  she  must  remain. 

"Almost  surely  I  shan't  be  allowed  to  see  Ourieda 
again,  and  if  I  can't  help  her  any  more  I  might  as  well 
beg  father  to  send  for  me  at  once,"  she  told  herself,  when 
Ben  Rdana,  formally  taking  leave  of  her,  with  hand  on 
forehead  and  heart,  had  gone.  She  went  slowly  and 
miserably  to  her  own  room  to  await  developments,  and 
while  she  waited,  hastily  wrote  the  message  to  Colonel 
DeLisle  which  three  days  later  found  him  at  Touggourt. 

In  writing,  she  feared  that  her  letter  might  never  be 
allowed  to  reach  her  father;  but  she  wronged  Ben  Raana. 
He  had  spoken  no  more  than  the  truth  (though  he  spoke  to 
hurt)  in  saying  he  would  rather  die  than  betray  a  trust. 
At  that  time  he  still  kept  his  calmness,  because  the  plot 
arranged  by  the  two  girls  had  not  succeeded.  His 
daughter  was  still  safe  under  his  own  roof,  and  it  was  not  an 
unexpected  blow  to  him  that  she  should  have  wished  to 
escape  from  Tahar.  He  knew  in  his  heart  that  Ourieda 
was  more  to  blame  than  Sanda,  and  seeing  shame  on  the 
young,  pale  face  of  the  Roumia  he  had  no  fear  of  anything 
George  DeLisle's  daughter  might  report  to  her  father. 
Her  letter  went  by  the  courier,  as  all  her  other  letters  had 


244  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

gone.  Mabrouka's  advice  to  keep  it  back,  or  at  least  to 
steam  the  envelope  open  and  see  what  was  inside,  was 
scorned  by  Ben  Raana;  and  to  Sanda's  astonishment  she 
was  actually  sent  for  to  visit  Ourieda. 

This  was  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  whose  dawn  had 
seen  the  girls'  defeat.  Ourieda  was  in  bed,  and  Taous 
sat  by  the  open  door  with  an  embroidery  frame.  But 
Taous  understood  neither  French  nor  English.  In  ex- 
change for  the  lessons  Ourieda  gave  Sanda  in  Arabic, 
Sanda  had  given  lessons  in  English;  therefore,  lest 
Aunt  Mabrouka  might  be  listening,  and  lest  she  might 
have  picked  up  more  French  than  she  cared  to  confess, 
the  two  girls  chose  the  language  of  which  Ourieda  had 
learned  to  understand  more  than  she  could  speak. 

"How  thankful  I  am  to  see  you,  dearest!"  cried  Sanda. 
"Didn't  you  think,  after  what  your  aunt  said,  that  I 
should  be  sent  away  this  morning?  Would  you  have 
dreamed,  even  if  I  stayed,  that  we  should  be  allowed  to 
meet  and  talk  like  this?  " 

Ourieda  answered,  slowly  and  brokenly,  that  she  had 
not  believed  Sanda  would  be  permitted  to  go.  Aunt 
Mabrouka  had  not  stopped  to  reflect  when  she  had  made 
that  threat,  or  else  she  had  hoped  to  part  them,  and  to 
make  Ourieda  believe  Sanda  had  gone.  "You  see,"  the 
girl  explained  in  her  halting  English,  "they  —  my  father 
and  my  aunt  —  shall  have  too  much  of  the  fear  to  let 
you  go  till  after  all  is  finished." 

"Finished?" 

"When  the  marrying  has  been  over  thou  canst  go. 
Then  it  too  late.  My  father  shall  be  sure,  thee  and  me, 
we  know  where  M is,  that  our  plan  was  for  him.  I 


THE  BEAUTY  DOCTOR  245 

say  no,  but  he  not  believe.  That  is  for  why  they  keep 
thee  here,  so  thou  not  tell  M  -  -  things  about  me.  But 
my  father,  he  shall  not  be  mean  and  little  in  his  mind  like 
my  aunt.  He  not  listen  to  the  words  she  speak  when 
she  say  not  let  us  meet  together.  My  father  know  very 
well  now  we  shall  be  finded  out,  it  is  the  end  for  us.  He 
not  have  fear  for  what  we  do  if  some  person  shall  watch 
to  see  I  not  kill  myself." 

"  What  has  become  of  poor  Embarka  ?  "  Sanda  asked. 

Ourieda  shook  her  head,  unutterable  sadness  in  her  eyes. 
"  I  think  never  shall  I  know  that  in  this  world." 

Ill,  without  feigning,  as  the  girl  was,  the  wedding  was  to 
be  hurried  on.  The  original  idea  had  been  for  the  week  of 
wedding  festivities  to  begin  on  the  girl's  seventeenth 
birthday;  but  now  Ben  Raana  said  that,  in  promising 
his  daughter  the  delay  she  asked  for,  he  had  always  in- 
tended to  begin  the  week  before  and  give  the  bride  to  the 
bridegroom  on  the  anniversary  of  her  birth. 

Ourieda  no  longer  pleaded.  She  had  given  up  hope,  and 
resigned  herself  with  the  deadly  calmness  of  resignation 
which  only  women  of  the  Mussulman  faith  can  feel.  It 
was  clear  that  her  will  was  not  as  Allah's  will.  And 
women  came  not  on  earth  for  happiness.  It  was  not  sure 
that  they  even  had  souls. 

"Allah  has  appointed  that  I  marry  my  cousin  Tahar," 
she  said  to  Sanda,  "and  I  shall  marry  him,  because  I  have 
not  another  stiletto  nor  any  poison,  and  I  am  always 
watched  so  that,  even  if  I  had  the  courage,  I  could  not 
throw  myself  down  from  the  roof.  But  afterward  - 
am  not  sure  yet  what  I  shall  do.  All  I  know  is  that  I 
shall  never  be  a  wife  to  Tahar.  Something  will  happen 


246  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

to  one  of  us.  It  may  be  to  me,  or  it  may  be  to  him.  But 
something  must  happen." 

The  Agha  himself  had  caused  to  be  built  at  Djazerta 
a  hammam  copied  in  miniature  after  a  fine  Moorish  bath 
in  Algiers,  at  which  he  bathed  when  he  went  north  to 
attend  the  governor's  yearly  ball.  All  Arab  brides  of 
high  rank  or  low  must  go  through  great  ceremonies  of  the 
bath  in  the  week  of  the  wedding  feast,  and  no  exception 
could  be  made  in  Ourieda's  case.  The  privacy  of  the 
hammam  was  secured  for  the  Agha's  daughter  by  hiring 
it  for  a  day,  and  no  one  was  to  be  admitted  to  the  women's 
part  of  the  bath  except  the  few  ladies  who  had  enough 
social  importance  to  expect  invitations.  That  Leila 
Mabrouka  and  Sanda  would  be  there  was  a  matter  of 
course;  and,  besides  them,  there  were  the  wives  and  daugh- 
ters of  two  or  three  sheikhs  and  caids,  all  of  whom  Sanda 
already  knew  by  sight,  as  they  had  paid  ceremonious 
visits  to  the  great  man's  harem  since  her  arrival  at 
Djazerta. 

The  Agha  had  a  carriage,  large,  old-fashioned,  and 
musty-smelling,  but  lined  with  gold-stamped  crimson  silk 
from  Tunis.  It  could  be  used  only  between  his  house 
and  the  town,  or  to  reach  the  oasis  just  beyond,  for  there 
was  nowhere  else  to  go;  but,  drawn  by  stalwart  mules  in 
Spanish  harness,  for  years  it  had  taken  the  ladies  of  his 
household  to  the  baths  and  back.  Leila  Mabrouka  and 
Taous  (both  veiled,  though  they  had  passed  the  age  of 
attractiveness  when  hiding  the  face  is  obligatory)  chap- 
eroned the  bride  and  her  friend,  the  coachman  and  his 
assistant  being  fat  and  elderly  eunuchs. 

At  the  doorway  of  the  domed  building,  the  only  new 


THE  BEAUTY  DOCTOR  247 

one  in  Djazerta,  there  was  much  stately  fuss  of  screening 
the  ladies  as  they  left  the  seclusion  of  the  carriage.  Then 
came  a  long,  tiled  corridor,  which  opened  into  a  room 
under  the  dome  of  the  hammam,  and  there  the  party  was 
met  not  only  by  bowing  female  attendants,  but  by  the 
guests,  who  had  arrived  early  to  welcome  them.  Ourieda 
was  received  with  pretty  cries  and  childlike,  excited 
chattering,  not  only  by  her  girl  friends,  but  the  older 
women.  All  were  undressed,  ready  for  the  bath,  or  they 
could  not  have  followed  the  bride  to  the  hot  rooms;  and 
that  was  the  object  and  pleasure  of  the  visit.  Every 
one  shrieked  compliments  as  the  clothing  of  the  Agha's 
daughter  was  delicately  removed  by  the  beaming  ne- 
gresses;  and  gifts  of  gold-spangled  bonbons,  wonderfully 
iced  cakes,  crystallized  fruit,  flowers,  gilded  bottles  of 
concentrated  perfume,  mother-o'-pearl  and  tortoise  boxes, 
gaudy  silk  handkerchiefs  made  in  Paris  for  Algerian 
markets,  and  little  silver  fetiches  were  presented  to  the 
bride.  She  thanked  the  givers  charmingly,  though  in  a 
manner  so  subdued  and  with  a  face  so  grave  that  the 
visitors  would  have  been  astonished  had  not  Leila  Ma- 
brouka  explained  that  she  had  been  ill  with  an  attack  of 
fever. 

From  hot  room  to  hotter  room  the  women  trooped, 
resting,  when  they  felt  inclined,  upon  mattings  spread  on 
marble,  while  the  bride,  the  queen  of  the  occasion,  was 
given  a  divan.  They  ate  sweets  and  drank  pink  sherbet 
or  syrup-sweet  coffee,  and,  instead  of  being  bathed  by  one 
of  the  attendants,  Ourieda  was  waited  upon  by  a  great 
personage  who  came  to  Djazerta  only  for  the  weddings  of 
the  highest.  Originally  she  was.  from  Tunis,  where  her 


248  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

profession  is  a  fine  art;  but  having  been  superseded  there- 
she  had  moved  to  Algiers,  then  to  Touggourt;  and  thence 
the  Agha  had  summoned  her  for  his  daughter.  She  was 
Zakia,  la  hennena,  a  skilled  beautifier  of  women;  and  she 
had  been  sent  for,  some  days  in  advance  of  the  great  oc- 
casion, in  order  (being  past  her  youth)  to  recover  from  the 
fatigue  of  the  journey.  None  of  the  young  girls  had  ever 
seen  her,  and  exclaiming  with  joy  they  fingered  her  scented 
pastes  and  powders. 

This  bridal  bath  ceremony,  being  more  intricate  than 
any  ordinary  bath,  took  a  long  time,  and  when  it  was 
over,  and  Ourieda  a  perfumed  statue  of  ivory,  the  cooling- 
room  was  entered  for  the  dyeing  of  the  bride's  hair. 
The  girl's  face  showed  how  she  disliked  the  process ;  but  it 
being  an  unwritten  law  that  the  hair  of  an  Arab  bride 
must  be  coloured  with  sabgha,  she  submitted.  After 
the  first  shudder  she  sat  with  downcast  eyes,  looking 
indifferent,  for  nothing  mattered  to  her  now.  Since 
Manoel  would  never  see  it  again,  and  perhaps  it  would 
soon  lie  deep  under  earth  in  a  coffin,  she  cared  very  little 
after  all  that  the  long  hair  he  had  thought  beautiful  must 
lose  its  lovely  sheen  for  fashion's  sake. 

Now  and  then,  as  she  worked,  Zakia  stooped  over  her 
victim,  bringing  her  old,  peering  face  close  to  the  bowed 
face  of  the  girl  to  make  sure  the  dye  did  not  touch  it. 
Sanda,  who  had  been  grudgingly  granted  a  thin  muslin 
robe  for  the  bath  because  of  her  strange  Roumia  ideas 
of  baring  the  face  and  covering  the  body,  noticed  these 
bendings  of  la  hennena,  but  thought  nothing  of  them  until 
she  happened  to  catch  a  new  expression  in  Ourieda's 
eyes.  Suddenly  the  gloom  of  hopelessness  had  gone  out 


THE  BEAUTY  DOCTOR  249 

of  them :  and  it  could  not  be  that  this  was  the  effect  of  the 
compliments  rained  upon  her  in  chorus  by  the  guests, 
for  until  that  instant  the  most  fantastic  praise  of  hair, 
features,  and  figure  had  not  extorted  a  smile.  What 
could  the  woman  have  said  to  give  back  in  an  instant  the 
girl's  lost  bloom  and  sparkle?  Sanda  wondered.  It  was 
like  a  miracle.  But  it  lasted  only  for  a  moment.  Then 
it  seemed  that  by  an  effort  Ourieda  masked  herself  once 
more  with  tragedy.  She  turned  one  of  her  slow,  sad 
glances  toward  her  aunt;  and  Sanda  was  sure  she  looked 
relieved  on  seeing  Leila  Mabrouka  absorbed  in  talk  with 
the  plump  wife  of  a  caid. 

According  to  custom  in  great  houses  of  the  south,  la 
hennena  was  escorted,  after  the  women's  f£te  at  the  ham- 
mam,  to  the  home  of  the  bride,  where  she  was  to  spend 
the  remainder  of  the  festive  week  in  heightening  the  girl's 
beauty.  She  was  given  the  guest-room  of  the  harem, 
second  in  importance  to  that  occupied  by  Colonel  De- 
Lisle's  daughter.  This,  as  it  happened,  was  nearer  to 
Ourieda's  room  than  Sanda's  or  even  Leila  Mabrouka's; 
and  as,  during  the  two  days  that  followed,  Zakia  was 
almost  constantly  occupied  in  blanching  the  bride's  ivory 
skin  with  almond  paste,  staining  her  fingers  red  as  coral 
with  a  decoction  of  henna  and  cochineal,  and  saturating 
her  hair  and  body  with  a  famous  permanent  perfume, 
sometimes  Leila  Mabrouka  and  Taous  ventured  to  leave 
the  two  girls  chaperoned  only  by  la  hennena.  That 
was  because  neither  had  seen  the  sudden  light  in  Ourieda's 
eyes  after  the  face  of  Zakia  had  approached  hers  at  the 
hammam. 

For  the  first  day  there  was  no  solution  of  the  mystery 


250  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

for  Sanda,  who  had  waited  to  hear  she  knew  not  what. 
But  at  last,  in  a  room  littered  with  pastes  and  perfume 
bottles,  and  lighted  by  the  traditional  long  candles  wound 
with  coloured  ribbon,  Ourieda  spoke,  in  Arabic,  that  the 
hennena  might  not  be  hurt. 

"Zakia  says  I  may  tell  thee  our  secret,"  she  said. 
"At  first  she  was  afraid,  but  now  she  sees  that  she  may 
trust  thee  as  I  do.  Didst  thou  guess  there  was  a  secret?  " 

"Yes,"  answered  Sanda. 

"I  thought  so!  Well,  it  is  this:  At  the  hammam  is 
employed  a  cousin  of  Embarka's.  I  feared  never  to  hear 
of  Embarka  again;  but  my  father  is  more  enlightened  than 
I  thought.  He  might  have  ordered  her  death,  and  the 
eunuchs  would  have  obeyed,  and  no  one  would  ever  have 
known.  Yet  he  did  no  more  than  send  her  away,  giving 
her  no  time  even  to  pack  that  which  was  hers.  He  did 
not  care  what  became  of  her,  being  sure  that  she  could 
never  again  enter  our  house.  But  he  did  not  know  of  the 
cousin  in  the  hammam.  And  perhaps  he  did  not  stop  to 
think  that  I  might  have  given  Embarka  jewels  for  helping 
me.  She  would  have  helped  without  payment,  because 
she  loved  me.  But  I  wished  to  reward  her.  She  hid 
the  things  in  her  clothing;  and  when  she  was  turned  out 
she  still  thought  of  me,  not  of  herself.  She  knew  I  would 
go  to  the  hammam  before  my  marriage,  and  that  Zakia 
had  been  sent  for  to  bathe  me  and  make  me  beautiful. 
So  she  gave  her  cousin  there  a  present,  and  all  the  rest  of 
the  jewels  she  gave  to  Zakia,  for  a  promise  Zakia  made. 
Nothing  has  Embarka  kept  of  all  my  gifts.  It  was  like 
her!  The  rest  is  easy  now.  I  shall  never  again  know 
happiness,  but  neither  shall  I  know  the  shame  of  giving 


THE  BEAUTY  DOCTOR  251 

myself  to  a  man  I  hate  when  heart  and  soul  belong  to 
one  I  love." 

"Can  la  hennena  help  you  to  escape?"  Sanda  wanted 
to  know. 

"From  Tahar,  yes.  Here  is  the  way,"  Ourieda  an- 
swered. And  she  held  out  for  Sanda  to  see  a  tiny  pearl- 
studded  gold  box,  one  of  many  quaint  ornaments  on  a 
chain  the  girl  always  wore  round  her  neck.  She  had 
explained  the  meaning  or  contents  of  each  fetich  long  ago, 
and  Sanda  knew  all  about  the  sacred  eye  from  Egypt, 
the  white  coral  horn  to  ward  off  evil,  the  silver  and  emerald 
case  with  a  text  from  the  Koran  blessed  by  a  great  saint 
or  marabout,  and  the  pearl-crusted  gold  box  containing 
a  lock  of  hair  certified  to  be  that  of  Fatma  Zora,  the 
Prophet's  favourite  daughter. 

"I  have  put  the  hair  with  the  text,"  said  Ourfeda. 
"Look,  in  its  place  this  tiny  bottle  of  white  powder. 
Canst  thou  guess  what  it  is  for?  " 

The  blood  rushed  to  Sanda's  face,  then  back  to  her 
heart.  But  she  did  not  answer.  She  only  looked  at 
Ourieda:  a  wide-eyed,  fascinated  look. 

"Thou  hast  guessed,"  the  Agha's  daughter  said  in  a 
very  little  voice  like  a  child's.  "But  I  shall  not  use  it 
if,  when  I  have  told  him  how  I  hate  him,  he  consents  to 
let  me  alone.  If  he  is  a  fool,  why,  he  brings  his  fate  on 
himself.  This  is  for  his  lips,  if  they  try  to  touch  mine." 

"But,"  Sanda  gasped;  "you  would  be  a- 

"I  know  the  word  in  thy  mind.     It  is  'murderess. 
Yet  my  conscience  would  be  clear.     It  would  be  for  the 
sake  of  my  love  —  to  keep  true  to  my  promise  at  any  cost, 
And  the  cost  might  be  my  life.    They  would  find  out; 


252  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

they  would  know  how  he  died.  This  is  no  coward's  act 
like  smiling  at  a  man  and  giving  him  each  day  powdered 
glass  or  chopped  hair  of  a  leopard  in  his  food,  which  many 
of  our  women  do,  to  kill  and  leave  no  trace.  If  I  break, 
I  pay." 

As  she  spoke  the  door  opened  and  Leila  Mabrouka 
came  swiftly  into  the  room,  fierce-eyed  as  a  tigress  whose 
cub  is  threatened.  She  was  tight-lipped  and  silent,  but 
her  eyes  spoke,  and  all  three  knew  that  she  had  listened. 
Such  words  as  she  had  missed  her  quick  wit  had  caught 
and  patched  together.  Ourieda's  wish  to  propitiate  Zakia 
by  not  seeming  to  talk  secrets  before  her  had  undone 
them  both.  But  it  was  too  late  for  regrets,  and  even  for 
lies. 

Leila  Mabrouka  clapped  her  hands,  and  Taous  came, 
to  be  told  in  a  tense  voice  that  the  Agha  must  be  sum- 
moned. Then  Mabrouka  turned  to  the  Rouniia. 

"Go,  thou!  This  has  nothing  to  do  with  thee, "  was 
all  she  said. 

Sanda  glanced  at  her  friend,  and  an  answering  glance 
bade  her  obey.  She  rose  and  went  out,  along  the  balcony 
to  the  door  of  her  own  room.  This  she  left  open, 
thinking  with  a  fast-beating  heart  that  if  there  were  any 
cry  she  would  run  back,  no  matter  what  they  might  do 
to  her.  But  there  was  no  cry,  no  sound  of  any  kind,  only 
the  cooing  of  doves  which  had  flown  down  into  the  foun- 
tain court,  hoping  Ouri'eda  might  throw  them  corn. 

The  custom  of  the  house  was  for  the  three  ladies  to 
take  their  meals  together  in  a  room  where  occasionally, 
as  a  great  honour,  the  Agha  dined  with  them.  That 
evening  a  tray  of  food  was  brought  to  Sanda  with  polite 


THE  BEAUTY  DOCTOR  253 

regrets  from  Leila  Mabrouka  because  she  and  her  niece 
were  too  indisposed  by  the  hot  weather  to  forsake  the 
shelter  of  their  rooms.  Politeness,  always  politeness, 
with  these  Arabs  of  high  birth  and  manners!  thought  the 
Irish-French  girl  in  a  passionate  revolt  against  the  cur- 
tain of  silk  velvet  softly  let  down  between  her  and  the 
secrets  of  Ben  Raana's  harem.  This  time  it  might  be, 
she  said  to  herself,  that  politeness  covered  tragedy.  But 
the  same  night  she  received  another  message  from  Ma- 
brouka. It  was  merely  to  say  that,  the  air  of  Djazerta  not 
being  healthful  at  this  time  of  year,  the  Agha  had  de- 
cided, for  his  daughter's  sake,  to  finish  the  week  of  the 
wedding  feast  out  in  the  desert,  at  the  douar. 


CHAPTER   XXI 

THE   ELEVENTH    HOUR 

WHEN  Max,  at  the  head  of  his  small  caravan,  came  in 
sight  of  the  Agha's  douar,  it  was  almost  noon,  and  the 
desert,  shimmering  with  heat,  was  motionless,  as  if  under 
enchantment.  They  had  travelled  through  the  night, 
after  learning  that  Ben  Raana  and  his  family  had  gone 
from  Djazerta,  with  intervals  of  rest  no  longer  than  those 
allowed  to  the  Legion  on  march.  What  they  saw  was 
a  giant  tent  as  large  as  a  circus  tent  in  a  village  of  America 
or  Europe  surrounded  at  a  distance  by  an  army  of  little 
tents,  black  and  dirty  brown,  so  flat  and  low  that  they 
were  like  huge  bats  with  outstretched  wings  resting  on 
the  sand.  The  great  tent  of  the  chief  with  its  high  roof, 
its  vast  spread  of  white;  red,  and  amber  striped  cloth  of 
close-woven  camel's  hair,  rose  nobly  above  all  the  others, 
as  a  mosque  rises  above  a  crowd  of  prostrate  worshippers 
at  prayer.  For  background,  there  was  a  clump  of  trees; 
for  here,  in  the  far  southern  desert,  just  outside  a  waving 
welter  of  dunes,  lay  a  region  of  dayas,  where  a  wilderness 
of  sand  and  tumbled  stones  was  brightened  by  green  hol- 
lows half  full  of  gurgling  water. 

Never  before  had  Max  seen  a  douar  of  importance,  the 
desert  dwelling  of  a  desert  chief.  But  Manoel  had  been 
here  before;  and  the  camel-drivers,  if  they  had  not  visited 

254 


THE  ELEVENTH  HOUR  255 

this  douar,  were  familiar  with  others.  Max  alone  won- 
dered at  the  great  tent,  whose  many  different  compart- 
ments sheltered  the  Agha,  his  whole  family,  and  servants 
brought  from  Djazerta.  As  the  caravan  wound  nearer 
to  watching  eyes,  another  tent,  not  so  big,  but  new  and 
brilliant  of  colour,  separated  itself  from  the  vast  bulk  of 
the  tente  sultane. 

"What  is  that?"  Max  asked  Manoel,  who  rode  beside 
him  as  interpreter,  his  dark-stained  face  almost  covered 
by  the  white  folds  of  his  woollen  hood,  the  fire  of  his  young 
eyes  dimmed  and  aged  by  a  pair  of  cheap,  silver-rimmed 
spectacles  such  as  elderly  Arabs  wear. 

"The  Agha  must  have  ordered  that  new  tent  to  be 
set  up  for  Tahar,"  Manoel  answered  gruffly;  and  Max 
guessed  from  the  sharpening  of  his  tone  and  the  brevity 
of  his  explanation  that  this  was  the  desert  dwelling  ap- 
pointed for  the  bridegroom  when  he  should  take  his 
bride. 

In  the  boldness  of  their  plan  lay  its  hope  of  success; 
for  though  Ben  Raana's  suspicions  were  on  the  alert 
he  would  not  expect  the  banished  lover  to  ride  brazenly 
up  to  his  tent,  side  by  side  with  a  soldier  messenger 
from  Colonel  DeLisle.  There  was  an  instant  of  suspense 
after  the  corporal  on  leave  and  his  Arab  interpreter  were 
received  by  the  Agha  in  a  reception-room  whose  walls 
were  red  woollen  draperies;  but  it  was  scarcely  longer 
than  a  heartbeat.  Ben  Raana  had  just  come  out  from 
another  room  beyond,  where,  the  curtains  falling  apart, 
several  guests  in  the  high  turbans  of  desert  dignitaries 
could  be  seen  seated  on  cushions  and  waited  upon  by 
Soudanese  men  who  were  serving  a  meal. 


256  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

The  Agha  scarcely  glanced  at  Max's  companion,  the 
dark,  spectacled  Arab,  but  announcing  in  French  that 
no  interpreter  would  be  needed,  he  clapped  his  hands  to 
summon  a  servant.  One  of  the  black  men  lifted  the  red 
curtains  higher  and  came  in,  received  instructions  as  to 
the  interpreter's  entertainment,  and  led  him  away.  Max 
could  hardly  keep  back  a  sigh  of  relief,  for  that  had  been 
a  bad  moment.  Now  it  was  over,  and  with  it  his  per- 
sonal responsibility  in  his  friend's  adventure.  It  had 
been  agreed  between  them  that  Colonel  DeLisle's  mes- 
senger to  Ben  Rdana  should  have  no  further  hand  in  the 
plot  against  the  Agha.  The  rest  was  for  Manoel  alone, 
unless  at  the  end  help  should  be  necessary  (and  possible) 
for  Ourieda's  rescue. 

Max  delivered  a  letter  from  DeLisle,  and  the  Agha  read 
it  slowly  through.  Then  he  raised  his  eyes  and  fixed 
them  upon  the  Legionnaire  as  if  wondering  how  far  he 
might  be  in  his  colonel's  confidence. 

"My  friend  has  sent  thee  to  escort  his  daughter  to 
Sidi-bel-Abbes,"  Ben  Raana  said  thoughtfully.  "Al- 
though he  cannot  be  there  himself,  he  believes  the  north- 
ern climate  will  be  better  for  her  health  at  this  time  of 
year.  Perhaps  he  is  right;  though  my  daughter,  whom 
she  has  visited,  would  have  been  delighted  as  a  married 
woman  to  keep  Mademoiselle  DeLisle  with  her.  How- 
ever, my  friend's  will  is  as  Allah's  will.  It  must  be  done. 
The  day  after  to-morrow  my  daughter's  wedding  feast 
will  be  over  and  she  will  go  to  her  husband's  tent.  Re- 
main here  quietly  till  then  as  my  guest.  Thy  interpreter 
and  the  persons  of  thy  caravan  shall  be  well  cared  for,  I 
promise  thee,  by  my  household.  When  my  daughter 


THE  ELEVENTH  HOUR  257 

leaves  me  the  daughter  of  my  friend  shall  go  in  peace  at 
the  same  hour,  in  thy  charge." 

As  he  spoke  his  eyes  remained  on  the  messenger's 
face,  watching  for  any  change  of  expression,  and  noting 
the  flush  that  mounted  through  the  soldier-tan. 

"I  am  very  sorry,"  said  Max,"  but  Colonel  DeLisle  has 
given  me  only  short  leave.  There  was  just  enough  time  to 
get  me  to  Djazerta,  from  Touggourt,  and  to  do  the  jour- 
ney comfortably  to  Sidi-bel-Abbes.  He  is  a  prompt  man, 
as  you  know.  He  thinks  and  acts  quickly.  It  didn't 
occur  to  him  that  there  need  be  any  great  delay.  Already 
there  has  been  a  day  lost  returning  from  Djazerta, 
where  I  heard  that  you  were  at  your  douar.  A  day 
and  a  half  here,  much  as  I  should  like  to  be  your  guest, 
would  mean  overstaying  my  leave.  That,  you  will  see,  is 
impossible." 

"  If  it  is  impossible,  I  fear  that  thou  must  go  from  here 
with  thy  mission  unfulfilled  and  without  Mademoiselle," 
replied  the  Agha,  irritatingly  calm.     "For  on  my  side 
it  is  impossible  to  let  her  go  before  my  daughter  is  - 
safely  married." 

He  smiled-as  he  spoke,  but  the  pause  and  the  emphasis 
on  a  certain  word  were  deliberate.  Max  was  meant  to 
understand  it,  in  case  DeLisle  had  confided  in  him. 
not,  it  did  not  matter;  he  would  realize  that  he  had  had  his 
ultimatum.  Max  did  realize  this,  and,  after  a  stunned 
second,  accepted  the  inevitable. 

"I'll  write  to  Sidi-bel-Abbes  and  explain.     It's  all 
can  do,"  was  the  thought  which  ran  through  his  head  as 
he  politely  informed  the  Agha  that  he  would,  at  any  cost, 
wait  for  Mademoiselle  DeLisle. 


258 

"May  I  see  her  and  deliver  in  person  a  letter  I  have 
from  her  father?  "  he  asked. 

But  Ben  Raana  regretted  that  this  might  not  be  until 
aH  was  ready  for  the  start,  which  must  be  made  in  the 
evening  after  the  end  of  the  marriage  feast,  unless  Corporal 
St.  George  preferred  to  wait  till  the  morning  after.  The 
customs  of  a  country  must  be  respected  by  those  sojourn- 
ing in  that  country;  and  the  Arab  ladies  visiting  the  douar 
would  be  scandalized  if  a  young  girl  were  allowed  to  speak 
with  a  strange  man.  There  was  nothing  for  it  but  sub- 
mission, and  Max  submitted,  inwardly  raging.  He  wrote 
explanations  to  the  officer  left  in  charge  at  Sidi-bel- Abbes, 
the  man  to  whom  he  must  report;  but  no  letter  could  reach 
DeLisle  for  many  weeks. 

He  was  entertained  as  the  Agha's  guest,  being  intro- 
duced to  Tahar  Ben  Hadj  and  several  caids  invited  for  the 
bridegroom's  part  of  the  festivities.  There  was  much 
feasting,  with  music  and  strange  dances  in  Tahar's  tent 
at  night,  and  outside,  fantasia  for  the  douar  in  honour  of 
the  wedding;  sheep  roasted  whole,  and  "powder  play." 
What  was  going  on  in  the  bride's  half  of  her  father's  great 
tent  Max  did  not  know,  but  he  fancied  that,  above  the 
beating  of  Tahar's  tomtoms  and  the  wild  singing  of  an 
imported  Arab  tenor,  he  could  hear  soft,  distant  wailings 
of  the  ghesbah  and  the  shrill  "You  —  you  —  you!"  of 
excited  women.  He  wondered  if  Sanda  knew  that  he  had 
come  to  take  her  away,  and  whether  Manoel  had  con- 
trived to  send  a  message  to  the  bride. 

That  same  night  Khadra  Bent  Djellab,  the  woman  who 
had  travelled  from  Touggourt  to  return  as  Sanda's 


THE  ELEVENTH  HOUR  259 

attendant,  came  from  the  camp  of  the  caravan  asking 
if  she  might  see  her  new  mistress.  All  was  hurry  and 
confusion  in  the  women's  part  of  the  tente  sultane,  for  a 
great  feast  was  going  on  which  would  last  through  most 
of  the  night.  The  excited  servants  told  Khadra  that  she 
must  go,  and  come  again  to  the  tent  in  the  morning;  but 
just  then  the  music  for  a  dance  of  love  began,  and  Khadra 
begged  so  hard  to  stay  that  she  was  allowed  to  stand  with 
the  servants.  She  had  never  seen  Sanda  DeLisle,  but 
she  had  been  told  by  the  interpreter  ("an  order  from  the 
master,"  said  he,  slipping  a  five-franc  piece  into  her 
hand)  that  there  would  be  no  other  Roumia  in  the  com- 
pany. When  Khadra  caught  sight  of  a  golden-brown  head, 
uncovered  among  the  heads  wrapped  in  coloured  silks  or 
gauze,  she  cautiously  edged  nearer  it,  behind  the  double 
rank  of  serving-women.  All  were  absorbed  in  staring  at 
the  dancing-girl,  a  celebrity  who  had  been  brought  from 
aa  oasis  town  farther  south.  She  had  arrived  at  Djazerta 
and  had  travelled  to  the  douar  when  the  family  hastily 
flitted;  but  this  was  the  night  of  her  best  dance.  No- 
body remembered  Khadra.  When  she  was  close  behind 
Sanda  she  pretended  to  drop  a  big  silk  handkerchief, 
such  as  Arab  women  love.  Squatting  down  to  pick  it 
up,  she  contrived  to  thrust  into  a  small  white  hand  hang- 
ing over  an  edge  of  the  divan  a  ball  of  crumpled  paper, 
and  gently  shut  the  fingers  over  it.  A  few  months,  or 
even  weeks,  ago  Sanda  would  have  started  at  the  touch 
and  looked  round.  But  her  long  stay  among  Arab 
women,  and  the  drama  of  the  last  eight  days,  had  schooled 
her  to  self-control.  Instantly  she  realized  that  some  new 
plot  was  on,  and  that  she  was  to  be  mixed  up  in  it.  She 


260  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

was  deadly  sick  of  plotting,  but  she  loved  Ourieda,  and 
had  advised  her  not  to  give  up  hope  until  the  last  minute. 
Perhaps  something  unexpected  might  come  to  pass.  With 
that  soft,  secret  touch  on  her  hand,  and  the  feel  of  the 
paper  in  her  palm,  she  knew  that  her  prophecy  was  being 
fulfilled. 

Not  far  away  sat  the  bride,  raised  high  above  the  rest  of 
the  company  on  a  kind  of  throne  made  of  carved  wood, 
painted  red  and  thickly  gilded.  It  had  served  generations 
of  brides  in  the  Agha's  family,  and  had  been  brought  out 
from  Djazerta.  Sanda  glanced  up  from  the  divan  of 
cushions  on  which  she  and  the  other  women  guests  re- 
clined to  see  if  Ourieda  was  looking  her  way.  But  the 
girl's  great  eyes  were  fixed  and  introspective. 

When  Sanda  was  sure  that  Leila  Mabrouka  and  Taous, 
her  spy,  were  both  intent  on  the  figure  posturing  in  the 
cleared  space  in  the  centre  of  the  room,  she  cautiously 
unfolded  the  ball  of  paper.  Holding  it  on  her  lap,  half 
hidden  by  the  frame  of  her  hands,  she  saw  a  fine,  clear 
black  writing,  a  writing  new  to  her.  The  words  —  French 
words  —  seemed  to  spring  to  her  eyes : 

"Tell  Ourieda  that  I  am  here.  She  will  know  who. 
Perhaps  you  know  also.  There  is  only  one  thing  to  do. 
She  must  go,  when  the  time  comes,  to  Tahar's  tent,  but 
let  her  have  no  fear.  At  night,  when  her  bridegroom 
should  come  to  her,  I  will  come  instead  and  take  her 
away.  No  one  will  know  till  the  morning  after,  so  we 
shall  have  a  long  start.  For  a  while  I  will  hide  her  in  a 
house  at  Djazerta,  where  I  have  friends  who  will  keep  us 
safe  until  the  search  is  over.  No  one  will  think  of  the  town. 
All  will  believe  that  we  have  joined  you  and  the  caravan 


THE  ELEVENTH  HOUR  261 

which  your  father  has  sent  in  charge  of  Corporal  St 
George.  It  is  with  him  I  have  come,  for  I,  too,  am  a 
Legionnaire.  I  hope  to  see  St.  George  and  explain  my 
latest  plans,  but  already  he  knows  that  I  shall  try  and 
reach  Spain  or  Italy.  There  I  can  make  myself  known 
without  fear  of  capture  and  imprisonment.  I  can  get  en- 
gagements and  money.  If  anything  prevents  my  seeing 
St.  George  again,  after  I  have  started,  show  him  this,  or 
let  him  know  what  I  have  said.  M.  V." 


Sanda's  cheeks,  which  had  been  pale,  brightened  to 
carnation  as  she  read;  but  the  dancer  held  all  eyes.  The 
girl  crumpled  up  the  letter  and  palmed  it  again,  wondering 
how  to  show  it  to  Ourleda,  for  they  had  not  once  been  al- 
lowed a  moment  alone  in  each  other's  company  since  the 
scene  with  la  hennena.  Not  that  Sanda  was  suspected 
of  a  hand  in  that  affair,  but  she  might  have  a  hand  in 
another  plot.  The  thing  was,  politely  and  kindly,  to 
keep  her  a  prisoner  until  after  Ourieda  had  gone  to  her 
husband.  Then  Tahar  could  protect  his  property;  and 
once  an  Arab  girl  is  married,  she  is  seldom  asked  to  elope, 
even  by  the  bravest  and  most  enterprising  of  lovers. 
Some  pretext  must  be  thought  of  for  the  giving  of 
Manoel's  letter.  But  what  —  what? 

The  answer  was  not  long  in  coming.  After  the  dance 
all  the  women,  with  the  exception  of  the  throned,  be- 
jewelled bride,  sprang  or  scrambled  up  from  their  cushions 
to  congratulate  the  celebrity.  Some  of  them  testified 
their  admiration  by  offering  her  rings,  anklets,  or  little 
gilded  bottles  of  attar-of-rose  which  they  bad  been  holding 
in  their  handkerchiefs;  and  even  Aunt  Mabrouka's  sharp 
eyes  did  not  see  Sanda  slio  the  ball  of  paper  into  Ourieda's 


262  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

hand  when  passing  the  throne  to  give  a  gold  brooch  to 
the  favourite. 

The  bride  herself  was  forgotten  for  a  few  minutes. 
Every  one  was  caressing  the  dancer,  patting  her  much- 
ringed  hands,  or  touching  her  bracelets  and  counting  the 
almost  countless  gold  coins  of  her  head  ornaments  and 
necklace.  When  Sanda  dared  glance  across  the  crowd 
toward  Ourieda  she  saw  by  the  look  in  her  eyes  that  the 
girl  had  read  the  letter. 


CHAPTER  XXH 

THE   HEART   OF  MAX 

MAX  had  resigned  himself  days  ago  to  Juan  Garcia's 
desertion  from  the  Legion,  since  the  girl  must  be  saved. 
But  he  was  far  from  happy  about  his  own  position.  The 
danger  was  that  the  day  when  he  was  due  to  report 
himself  at  Sidi-bel-Abbes  would  come  and  he  would  be 
absent.  His  letter  of  explanation  ought  to  have  arrived 
by  that  time,  but  it  might  be  considered  the  trick  of  a  de- 
serter. And  even  when  he  appeared,  the  news  of  Garcia's 
desertion  from  his  caravan  must  be  told.  The  loss  of  a 
man  would  be  a  black  mark  against  him,  and  he  would 
probably  forfeit  the  stripe  on  which  he  had  been  con- 
gratulated by  the  colonel. 

There  was  consolation  in  the  thought  of  seeing  Sanda 
again,  and  the  certainty  that  she  would  "stand  up"  for 
him;  but  he  did  not  realize  just  how  much  that  consola- 
tion would  mean,  until,  after  the  delay  of  a  day  and  a 
half,  word  came  that  Mademoiselle  DeLisle  was  ready 
to  leave  her  friend.  The  caravan  had  been  assembled 
and  waiting  for  the  last  hour,  and  Max  knew  that  the 
bride  must  have  gone  to  her  husband's  tent.  The  music 
had  been  wilder  than  before,  the  women's  cries  of  joy 
louder  and  more  triumphant;  and  while  he  had  been  ex- 
amining the  trappings  of  Sanda's  camel  a  procession  had 

263 


264  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

gone  by  carrying  aloft  several  big  boxes  draped  with 
brocade  and  cloth-of-gold:  the  bride's  luggage  on  its  way 
to  her  new  home.  The  feasting  in  the  tente  sultane  would 
continue  all  that  night,  as  on  other  nights;  but  Ourieda 
and  Tahar  would  be  left  quietly  in  the  tent  of  the  bride- 
groom, alone  until  after  dawn,  when  Tahar  would  steal 
away  and  the  girl's  women  friends  would  rush  in  to  wish 
her  joy.  That  would  be  the  hour,  Max  told  himself,  when 
all  would  be  found  out,  and  the  chase  would  begin.  He 
had  seen  Manoel  once  since  the  last  details  of  the  plot  to 
rescue  Ourieda  had  been  settled.  He  knew  that  Manoel 
had  sent  a  letter  to  her  through  Sanda,  to  whom  it  had 
been  given;  but  he  was  not  sure  if  Sanda  had  been  warned 
of  the  part  she  would  have  to  play. 

It  was  of  this,  more  than  the  personality  of  Sanda  her- 
self, that  he  thought,  as  he  waited,  expecting  her  to  come 
out  from  the  Agha's  tent.  But  instead,  she  came  from 
another  direction,  and  he  did  not  recognize  the  slim 
figure  in  Arab  dress  until  the  well-remembered  voice 
spoke  through  the  white  veil : 

"  It  is  —  my  Soldier  St.  George! "  Sanda  cried  in  English, 
and  a  thrill  ran  through  the  young  man's  blood.  He  for- 
got all  about  himself,  his  risks  and  his  perplexities,  and 
nothing  seemed  to  matter  except  that  Sanda  DeLisle 
had  come  back  into  his  life — the  girl  whose  long,  soft  hair 
brushed  his  face  in  dreams,  the  girl  who  had  saved  his 
belief  in  womanhood  and  raised  up  for  him,  in  his  black 
need,  a  new  ideal. 

A  tall  negro  woman,  whose  forehead  was  a  strip  of 
ebony,  whose  eyes  were  beads  of  jet  above  her  snowy  veil, 
accompanied  Mademoiselle  DeLisle,  and  the  two  had 


THE  HEART  OF  MAX  265 

arrived  from  the  bridegroom's  tent,  where  doubtless 
Sanda  had  been  bidding  the  bride  good-bye.  Max 
realized  that  her  attendant  would  be  shocked  if  he  should 
offer  to  shake  hands  with  the  girl,  so  he  only  bowed,  and 
answered  hastily  in  English  that  he  was  glad  —  glad  to 
see  her  again  —  glad  to  have  the  honour  of  being  her 
guide.  Khadra  was  brought  forward,  and  Sanda  spoke 
a  few  words  to  her  in  Arabic.  Then  the  girl  was  helped 
into  her  bassourah,  luggage  being  brought  out  by  eunuchs 
from  the  Agha's  tent  and  packed  in  to  balance  the  other 
side.  Only  when  the  Roumia  had  retired  behind  the 
blue  and  red  and  purple  curtains  did  Ben  Raana  appear 
to  wish  his  friend's  daughter  and  messenger  the  blessing 
of  Allah  on  their  journey.  The  caravan  started,  and  it 
was  not  until  after  the  douar,  with  its  green  daya  and  back- 
ground of  trees,  was  dim  in  the  distance  that  Sanda's 
curtains  parted.  Max,  riding  the  only  horse  in  the  party, 
saw  the  trembling  of  the  rainbow-coloured  stuff,  and 
glanced  up,  expectant.  He  found  that  his  heart  and  all 
his  pulses  were  hammering,  and  as  the  girl's  gold-brown 
head  appeared,  her  veil  thrown  off,  something  seemed  to 
leap  in  his  breast,  something  that  gave  a  bound  like  that 
of  a  great  fish  on  a  hook.  She  looked  down  and  smiled 
at  him  rather  sadly,  yet  more  sweetly  it  seemed  to  Max 
than  any  other  woman  had  ever  smiled.  He  had  not 
realized  or  remembered  how  beautiful  she  was.  Why, 
it  was  the  most  exquisite  face  in  the  world!  An  angel's 
face,  yet  the  face  of  a  human  girl.  He  adored  it  as  a 
man  may  adore  an  angel,  and  he  loved  it  as  a  man  loves 
a  woman.  A  great  and  irresistible  tide  of  love  rushed 
over  him.  What  a  fool,  what  a  young,  simple  fool  he  had 


266  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

been  to  think  that  he  had  ever  loved  Billie  Brookton! 
That  seemed  hundreds  of  years  ago,  in  another  incarna- 
tion, when  he  had  been  undeveloped,  when  his  soul  had 
been  asleep.  His  soul  was  awake  now!  Something  had 
awakened  it;  life  in  the  Legion,  perhaps,  for  that  had 
begun  to  show  him  his  own  capabilities;  or  else  love  itself, 
which  had  been  waiting  to  say:  "I  am  here,  now  and  for- 
ever." 

Max  was  almost  afraid  to  look  at  Sanda  lest  she  should 
read  through  his  eyes  the  words  written  on  his  heart. 
But  then  he  remembered  in  a  flash  her  love  for  Stanton, 
which  would  blind  her  to  such  feelings  in  other  men.  He 
felt  sick  for  an  instant  in  his  hopelessness.  Wherever  he 
turned,  whatever  he  did,  happiness  seemed  never  to  be 
for  him. 

"You  don't  know  how  glad  I  am  to  see  you!"  the  girl 
explained.  "I've  thought  of  you  so  often  and — "  she 
was  going  to  add  impulsively  —  "and  dreamed  about  you, 
too!"  but  she  remembered  the  Arab  saying  which  Ourieda 
had  told  her:  that  when  a  woman  dreams  of  a  man,  that 
is  the  man  she  loves.  It  was  a  silly  saying,  and  untrue; 
yet  she  kept  back  the  words  hi  a  queer  sort  of  loyalty  to 
Stanton  —  Stanton,  who  neither  thought  nor  dreamed  of 
her. 

"I  was  so  thankful  when  I  heard  my  father  had  sent 
for  me,"  she  quickly  went  on.  "I  heard  about  it  only 
through  that  letter  —  you  know  the  one  I  mean." 

"Yes,  I  know,"  said  Max.  "I  felt  they  didn't  mean  to 
tell  you  till  the  last  minute,  though  I  could  see  no  reason 
why.  I  —  I  was  more  than  glad  and  proud  to  be  the 
one  to  come." 


THE  HEART  OF  MAX  267 

He  was  not  hoping  unselfishly  that  Colonel  DeLisle 
mightn't  have  told  in  his  letter  how  the  great  march  and 
the  expected  fight  had  been  sacrificed  for  her  sake.  He 
was  not  hoping  this,  because  in  his  sudden  awakening 
to  love  he  had  forgotten  the  march.  He  was  thinking  of 
Sanda  and  the  wild  happiness  that  would  turn  to  pain  in 
memory  of  being  with  her  for  days  in  the  desert.  If, 
when  he  reached  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  he  were  blamed  for  the 
delay,  and  punished  by  losing  his  stripe,  or  even  by  prison, 
it  would  be  nothing,  or  almost  a  joy,  because  he  would  be 
suffering  for  her. 

"It  was  only  to-day  they  gave  me  father's  letter, 
which  you  brought,"  Sanda  was  saying.  "It  was  short, 
written  in  a  hurry,  in  answer  to  one  I  sent  begging  him  to 
take  me  away.  Yet  he  mentioned  one  thing:  that  he 
didn't  order  you,  but  only  asked  if  you  were  willing,  to 
come.  And  he  told  me  what  you  answered.  I  can  never 
thank  you,  but  I  do  appreciate  it  —  all !  " 

"It  was  my  selfishness,"  answered  Max.  "I  said  that 
the  colonel  was  giving  me  the  Cross  of  the  Legion  of 
Honour.  I  felt  that,  then.  I  feel  it  a  lot  more  now." 
There  was  more  truth  in  this  than  he  wished  her  to  guess. 

"You  are  the  realest  friend!"  cried  Sanda.  "Why,  do 
you  know,  now  I  come  to  think  of  it,  unless  I  count  my 
father,  you  are  the  only  real  friend  I  have  in  the  world?" 

"You  forget  Mr.  Stanton!"  Max  reminded  her,  without 
intending  to  be  cruel. 

She  blushed,  and  Max  hated  himself  as  if  he  had  brought 
the  colour  to  her  face  with  a  blow. 

"No,"  she  answered  quietly.  "I  never  forget  him. 
But  you  understand,  because  I  told  you  everything,  that 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

in  my  heart  I  can't  call  him  my  friend.  He  doesn't  care 
enough,  and  /  —  care  too  much." 

"Forgive  me!"  Max  begged.  "All  the  same  I  know  he 
must  care.  He  wouldn't  be  human  not  to." 

"He  isn't  human!  He's  superhuman !"  She  laughed, 
to  cover  her  pain  of  humiliation.  "I  suppose  —  long 
ago  —  he  has  started  out  on  his  wonderful  mission.  I 
keep  thinking  of  him  travelling  on  and  on  through  the 
desert,  and  I  pray  he  may  be  safe,  and  succeed  in  finding 
the  Lost  Oasis  he  believes  in.  He  told  me  in  Algiers  that 
to  find  it  would  crown  his  life." 

"He  hadn't  started  when  I  left  Touggourt,"  Max  said 
rather  dryly. 

"What  —  he  was  still  there?  Then  my  father  must 
have  seen  him.  How  strange !  He  didn't  refer  to  him  at 
all." 

"You  mentioned  that  the  colonel  wrote  in  a  hurry." 
Max  hinted  at  this  explanation  to  comfort  her,  but  he 
guessed  why  DeLisle  had  not  been  in  a  mood  to  speak 
of  Stanton  to  his  daughter.  "There  is  a  reason,"  he  had 
said,  "why  I  don't  want  to  ask  Stanton  to  put  off  starting 
and  go  to  Djazerta."  And  Max,  having  seen  the  dancer, 
Ahmara,  had  known  without  telling  what  the  reason  was. 

"Do  you  think  Richard  may  be  there  when  we  get  to 
Touggourt?"  she  asked,  shamefaced, yet  not  able  to  resist 
putting  the  question. 

"I  think  it's  very  likely."  Max  tried  to  keep  his  tone 
at  reassuring  level,  though  he  hoped  devoutly  that  Stan- 
ton  might  be  gone.  He  could  not  bear  to  think  of  his 
seeing  Sanda  again  after  the  Ahmara  episode.  With  a 
man  of  Stanton's  strange,  erratic  nature  and  wild  im- 


THE  HEART  OF  MAX  269 

pulses,  who  could  be  sure  whether  —  but  Max  would  not 
let  the  thought  finish  in  his  mind. 

Sanda  suddenly  dropped  the  subject.  Whether  this 
was  because  she  saw  that  Max  disliked  it,  or  whether  she 
had  no  more  to  say,  he  could  not  guess. 

"  Tell  me  about  yourself,  now,"  she  said.  "  My  father 
has  told  me  some  things  in  letters,  but  I  long  to  know  from 
you  if  I  made  a  mistake  in  wanting  you  to  try  the  Legion." 

"You  made  no  mistake.  It's  one  of  the  things  I  have 
to  thank  you  for  —  one  of  several  very  great  things," 
said  Max. 

"What  other  things?  I  can't  think  of  one  unless  you 
thank  me  for  having  a  splendid  father." 

"That's  one  thing." 

"Are  there  more?" 

"Yes." 

"Tell  me,  please.  Anyway,  the  greatest,  or  I  shan't 
believe  in  any." 

Max  was  silent  for  an  instant.  Then  he  said  in  a  voice 
so  low  she  could  hardly  hear  it,  bending  down  from  her 
bassourah,  "  For  giving  me  back  my  faith  in  women." 

"I?     But  you  hadn't  lost  it." 

"I  was  in  danger  of  losing  it,  with  most  of  my  mental 
and  moral  baggage.  Through  you  —  I've  kept  the 

lot." 

"  That's  the  most  beautiful  thing  ever  said  to  me.    Anc 

it  does  me  so  much  good  after  all  I've  gone  through  and 

been  blamed  for!" 

"Who's  dared  to  blame  you  for  anything?' 

"I  asked  you  to  tell  me  about  yourself.    When  you 

have  done  that  I'll  tell  you  things  that  have  happened 


270  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

here,  things  concerning  Manoel  Valdez  and  Ourieda  — 
poor  darling  Ourieda,  whom  I  ought  to  be  thinking  of 
every  instant!  And  so  I  am,  only  I  can't  help  being 
happy  to  get  away  —  with  you." 

There  was  sweet  pain  in  hearing  those  last  words,  and 
the  emphasis  the  caressing  girl-voice  gave.  Max  hurried 
through  a  vague  list  of  such  events  as  seemed  fit  for 
Sanda's  ears.  They  were  not  many,  since  he  did  not 
count  his  fights  among  the  mentionable  ones.  He  told 
her,  with  more  detail,  about  his  acquaintance  with  Valdez, 
whose  face  she  had  remarked  at  the  railway  station  at 
Sidi-bel- Abbes;  and  then  claimed  her  promise.  She 
must  tell  him,  if  she  would  (with  a  sudden  drop  from  the 
happy  way  of  Max  Doran  with  women  to  the  humbler 
way  of  Max  St.  George,  Legionnaire),  what  she  had  gone 
through  in  the  Agha's  house. 

She  began  by  asking  a  question.  "Didn't  you  think 
it  queer  that  no  one  but  a  servant  came  out  to  see  me 
off?" 

"I  did  a  little,  but  I  put  it  down  to  Arab  manners." 

"It  was  because  I  left  in  disgrace.  Oh !  no  one  was  ever 
rude!  They  were  polite  always.  It  was  like  being 
stuffed  with  too  much  honey.  And  I  don't  mean 
Ourieda,  of  course.  Ourieda 's  a  darling.  I'd  do  any- 
thing for  her.  I  Ve  proved  that !  Did  my  father  give  you 
any  idea  why  he  had  to  send  for  me  in  a  hurry,  though 
he  has  to  leave  me  alone  —  or  rather  in  charge  of  people  I 
don't  know  —  at  Bel- Abbes?  He  must  have  told  you 
something,  as  he  asked  such  a  sacrifice. " 

"  He  needn't  have  told  me  anything  at  all.  But  he  took 
me  into  his  confidence  —  it  was  like  him  —  far  enough  to 


THE  HEART  OF  MAX  271 

say  the  Agha  was  offended  somehow,  and  you  were 
anxious  to  leave." 

"I  should  think  the  Agha  was  offended!  I  tried  to 
help  Ourieda  to  escape,  even  though  she  hadn't  heard 
from  her  Manoel.  She  had  lots  of  jewels,  and  thought 
she  might  get  to  France.  We  failed  in  our  attempt,  and 
after  that  we  were  never  alone  together,  though  they  — 
her  father  and  aunt  —  didn  't  want  me  to  go  till  she  was 
married.  The  idea  at  first  was  —  when  I  arrived,  I 
mean  —  that  my  visit  shouldn't  end  till  father  came  back. 
They  meant  me  to  stop  on  with  Ourieda,  as  she  and  her 
husband  would  live  at  her  old  home  at  Djazerta.  The  last 
plot  wasn't  mine.  It  was  got  up  by  an  old  nurse  they'd 
sent  away,  and  a  weird  woman,  a  kind  of  Arab  beauty- 
doctor.  But  all  the  same  they  were  afraid  of  me.  They 
longed  to  have  me  gone,  yet,  for  their  own  superstitious, 
secretive  reasons,  they  were  afraid  to  let  me  go.  As  I  had 
to  stay  so  long,  I'd  rather  have  stopped  a  little  longer,  so 
as  to  know  what  becomes  of  Ourieda.  They  made  me 
say  good-bye  to  her  in  Tahar's  tent,  where  she  is  waiting, 
all  dressed  up  like  a  doll,  till  the  hour  at  night  when  her 
husband  chooses  to  come  to  her.  Instead,  we  hope  — 
But  I  can  hardly  bear  it,  not  to  know!  Shall  we  ever 
know?" 

"It  may  be  a  long  time  before  Manoel  can  send  us  any 
word, "  said  Max.  "  But  we  shall  hear,  I  suppose,  about 

Tahar." 

"Oh,  Manoel  doesn't  mean  to  kill  him,  does  he?  Ourieda 
said  he  wouldn't  do  that !  But  Arab  women  are  so  strange, 
so  different  from  us,  I  don't  believe  she'd  care  much  if  he 
did;  except  that  if  he  were  a  murderer  they  could  seize  him, 


272  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE    LEGION 

even  in  another  country  —  Spain,  where  they  both  hope 
to  go  when  they  can  get  out  of  Djazerta." 

"Manoel  wouldn't  care  much,  either,  except  for  that 
same  reason,"  Max  admitted.  "But  he  does  care  for 
that.  He  intends  only  to  surprise  and  stun  Tahar.  He 
doesn't  want  his  life  with  Ourieda  spoiled,  for  he'll  be  a 
public  character,  you  know,  if  he  succeeds  in  escaping  from 
Algeria.  He'll  be  a  great  singer.  He  can  take  back  his 
own  name. " 

"Why  not  France?"  Sanda  wanted  to  know.  "Surely 
France  would  be  better  for  a  singer  than  Spain,  or  even 
Italy?" 

"Perhaps,  but,  you  see,  he  has  had  to  desert  from  the 
Legion.  In  France  he  could  be  brought  back  to  Algeria  to 
the  penal  battalion." 

"Oh,  I  hadn't  thought  of  that!" 

"It  was  —  a  hateful  necessity,  his  deserting. " 

Sanda  looked  at  him  anxiously.  "  Will  it  make  trouble 
for  you?" 

"Possibly.  I  hoped  it  needn't  happen.  But  it  had  to. 
There  was  no  other  way  in  the  end." 

"How  he  must  love  Ourieda,  to  risk  all  that  for  her 
sake!" 

"He  risked  a  great  deal  more." 

"  What  —  but,  oh,  yes,  you  told  me !  The  way  he  came 
into  the  Legion,  and  all  that.  I  wonder  —  I  wonder  if 
there  are  many  men  in  the  world  who  would  do  as  much 
for  a  woman?" 

"  I  think  so,"  said  Max  quietly.  "  You  don't  count  the 
cost  very  much  when  you  are  in  love." 

He  was  to  remember  that  speech  before  many  days. 


THE  HEART  OF  MAX  273 

"They're  wonderful,  men  like  that!"  Sanda  murmured. 
"And  there's  more  risk  to  come,  for  Ourleda  and  himself. 
A  little  for  us,  too,  isn't  there?" 

"  Not  for  you,  please  God !  And  very  little  for  any  of  us. 
But  I  see  you  know  what  Manoel  expects  to  happen." 

"Oh,  yes,  that  they'll  run  after  us,  thinking  that  he  has 
followed  with  Ourieda,  to  join  our  caravan.  I  do  hope 
the  Agha  will  send  his  men  after  us,  for  that  will  make  us 
sure  those  two  have  got  away.  If  we  hear  sounds  of 
pursuit  we'll  hurry  on  quickly.  Then  the  chase  will 
have  farther  to  go  back,  and  Manoel  and  Ourieda  will  gain 
time.  The  more  ground  we  can  cover  before  we're  come 
up  with  by  the  Agha's  camels,  who'll  be  superior  to  ours, 
the  better  it  will  be,  won't  it?" 

"Yes,  for  if  the  Agha  lets  Djazerta  alone,  Manoel  may 
contrive  to  slip  out  of  the  town  sooner  than  he  dared  hope, 
well  disguised,  in  a  caravan  of  strangers  not  of  Ben 
Raana's  tribe.  In  that  case  the  Agha  of  Djazerta  would 
have  no  right  to  search  among  the  women.  And  Manoel 's 
splendid  at  disguise.  His  actor's  training  has  taught 
him  that." 

"  I  feel  now  that  he  will  get  Ourieda  out  of  the  country. 
They've  suffered  too  much  and  dared  too  much  to  fail 
in  the  end." 

"I  hope  so;  I  think  so,"  Max  answered.  But  he  knew 
that  in  real  life  stories  did  sometimes  end  badly.  His  own, 
for  instance.  He  could  see  no  happy  ending  for  that. 

They  pushed  on  as  fast  as  the  animals  could  go  when  a 
long  march  and  not  a  mere  spurt  of  speed  was  before  them. 
Through  the  mysterious  sapphire  darkness  of  the  desert 
night  the  padding  feet  of  the  camels  strode  noiselessly 


274  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

over  the  hard  sand.  Sanda  asked  Max  to  offer  extra 
pay  to  the  men  if  they  would  put  up  with  an  abbreviated 
rest.  Only  three  hours  they  paused  to  sleep;  and  then, 
in  the  dusk  before  dawn,  when  all  living  things  are  as 
shadows,  the  camels  were  wakened  to  snarl  with  rage 
while  their  burdens  were  ruthlessly  strapped  on  again. 
As  Max  gave  Sanda  a  cup  of  hot  coffee  (which  he  had 
made  for  her,  as  Legionnaires  make  it,  strong  and  black) 
she  said,  shivering  a  little,  "Do  you  think  they'll  have 
found  Tahar  yet  if  —  if " 

"Hardly  yet!  Not  till  daylight,"  answered  Max. 
"Are  you  cold?  These  desert  nights  can  be  bitter,  even 
in  summer.  Won't  you  let  me  put  something  more 
around  you?" 

"No,  thanks.  It's  only  excitement  that  makes  me 
shiver.  I'm  thinking  of  Ourieda  and  Manoel.  I've  been 
thinking  of  them  instead  of  sleeping.  But  I'm  not  tired. 
I  feel  all  keyed  up;  as  if  something  wonderful  were  going 
to  happen  to  me,  too." 

Something  wonderful  was  happening  to  Max.  But  she 
had  no  idea  of  that.  She  would  never  know,  he  thought. 

All  day  they  journeyed  on,  save  for  a  short  halt  at  noon, 
and  Max  was  happy.  He  tried  to  recall  and  quote  to 
himself  a  verse  of  Tennyson's  "Maud" — "Let  come  what 
come  may;  What  matter  if  I  go  mad,  I  shall  have  had 
my  day!"  He  was  having  his  day  —  just  that  one  day 
more,  because  on  the  next  they  would  come  to  Touggourt, 
and  if  Stanton  were  there  he  would  spoil  everything. 

At  night  they  went  on  till  late,  as  before;  but  the  camel- 
men  said  that  the  animals  must  have  a  longer  rest. 
Luckily  it  did  not  matter  now  if  they  were  caught.  If 


THE  HEART  OF  MAX  275 

Manoel  and  Ourleda  had  escaped  they  had  had  a  long  start. 
A  little  after  midnight  the  vast  silence  of  the  sand-ocean 
was  broken  with  cries  and  shoutings  of  men.  The  Arabs, 
not  knowing  of  the  expected  raid,  stumbled  up  from  their 
beds  of  bagging  and  ran  to  protect  the  camels;  but  Max, 
who  had  not  undressed,  walked  out  from  the  little  camp 
to  meet  a  cavalcade  of  men. 

Ben  Raana  himself  rode  in  advance,  mounted  on  a 
swift-running  camel.  In  the  blue  gloom  where  the  stars 
were  night  lights  Max  recognized  the  long  black  beard 
of  the  Agha  flowing  over  his  white  cloak.  None  rode 
near  him.  Tahar  was  not  there.  Max  took  that  as  a 
good  sign. 

"Who  are  you?"  demanded  the  uniformed  Legionnaire 
in  his  halting  Arabic.  "In  the  name  of  France,  I  demand 
your  business." 

Ben  Raana,  recognizing  him  also,  impatiently  answered 
in  French,  "And  I  demand  my  daughter!" 

"Your  daughter?  Ah,  I  see!  It  is  the  Agha  of  Dja- 
zerta.  But  what  can  we  know  of  your  daughter?  We 
left  her  being  married." 

"I  think  thou  knowest  well,"  Ben  Raana  cut  him  short 
furiously,  "that  her  marriage  was  not  consummated.  I 
cherished  a  viper  in  my  bosom  when  I  entertained  in  my 
house  the  child  of  George  DeLisle.  She  has  deceived  me, 
and  helped  my  daughter  to  deceive." 

"I  cannot  hear  Mademoiselle  DeLisle  spoken  of  in 
that  way,  even  by  my  colonel's  friend,  sir,"  said  Max. 
"If  your  daughter  has  run  away  - 

"  If !  Thou  knowest  well  that  she  has  run  away  with  her 
lover,  who  has  half  murdered  the  man  uho  should  by 


276  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

now  be  her  husband.  Thou  knowest  and  Mademoiselle 
knows!" 

"You  are  mistaken,"  broke  in  Max,  not  troubling  to 
hide  his  anger.  "  If  you  think  your  daughter  — 

"I  think  she  is  here!  But  thou  canst  not  protect  her 
from  me.  Try,  and  thou  and  every  man  with  thee  shall 
perish." 

"Search  our  camp,"  said  Max. 

As  he  spoke,  Sanda  appeared  at  the  door  of  the  mean 
little  tent  hired  for  her  at  Touggourt.  From  the  shelter 
of  the  bassourah,  close  by  on  the  sand,  Khadra  peeped  out. 
The  search  was  made  quickly  and  almost  without  words. 
If  the  power  of  France  had  not  been  behind  the  soldier 
and  the  girl  whom  Ben  Raana  now  hated,  he  would  have 
reverted  —  "enlightened"  man  as  he  was  —  to  primitive 
methods.  He  would  have  killed  the  pair  with  his  own 
hand,  while  the  men  of  his  goum  put  the  Arabs  to  death, 
and  all  could  have  been  buried  under  the  sand  save  the 
camels,  which  would  have  been  led  back  to  Djazerta. 
But  France  was  mighty  and  far  reaching,  and  he  and  his 
tribe  would  have  to  pay  too  high  for  such  indulgence. 

When  he  was  sure  that  Ourieda  and  Manoel  Valdez 
were  not  concealed  in  the  camp,  with  cold  apologies  and 
farewells  he  turned  with  his  men  and  rode  off  toward  the 
south  —  a  band  of  shadows  in  the  night.  The  visit  had 
been  like  a  dream,  the  desert  dream  that  Sanda  had  had 
of  Max,  Max  of  Sanda.  Yet  dimly  it  seemed  to  both  that 
these  dreams  had  meant  more  than  this.  The  girl  let 
her  "Soldier  St.  George"  warm  her  small,  icy  hands,  and 
comfort  her  with  soothing  words. 

"You  were  not  treacherous,"  he  said.     "You  did  ex- 


THE  HEART  OF  MAX  277 

actly  right.  You  deserve  happiness  for  helping  to  make 
that  girl  happy.  And  you'll  have  it!  You  must!  You 
shall!  I  couldn't  stand  your  not  being  happy." 

"Already  it's  to-day,"  she  half  whispered,  "to-day  that 
we  come  to  Touggourt.  The  greatest  thing  in  my  father's 
life  happened  there.  I  thought  of  that  when  I  passed 
through  before,  and  wondered  what  would  happen  to  me. 
Nothing  happened.  But  —  what  about  to-day?" 

"May  it  be  something  very  good,"  Max  said  steadily. 
But  his  heart  was  heavy,  as  in  his  hands  her  own  grew 
warm. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

"WHERE  THE  STRANGE  ROADS  GO  DOWN" 

SHADOWS  of  evening  flowed  over  the  desert  like  blue 
water  out  of  whose  depths  rose  the  golden  crowns  of  the 
dunes.  The  caravan  had  still  some  miles  of  sand  billows 
between  them  and  Touggourt,  when  suddenly  a  faint 
thrill  of  sound,  which  might  have  been  the  waking  dream 
of  a  tired  brain,  or  a  trick  of  wind,  a  sound  scarcely 
louder  than  heart-throbs,  grew  definite  and  distinct:  the 
distant  beating  of  African  drums,  the  shriek  of  raitas,  and 
the  sighing  of  ghesbahs.  The  Arabs  on  their  camels  came 
crowding  round  Max,  who  led  the  caravan,  riding  beside 
Sanda's  mehari. 

"  Sidi,"  said  their  leader,  "this  music  is  not  of  earth,  for 
Touggourt  is  too  distant  for  us  to  hear  aught  from  there. 
It  is  the  devil.  It  comes  from  under  the  dunes.  Such 
music  we  have  heard  in  the  haunted  desert  where  the 
great  caravan  was  buried  beneath  the  sands,  but  here  it 
is  the  first  time,  and  it  is  a  warning  of  evil.  Something 
terrible  is  about  to  happen.  What  shall  we  do  —  stop 
here  and  pray,  though  the  sunset  prayer  is  past,  or  go  on?  " 

"Go  on,  of  course,"  ordered  Max.  "As  for  the  music, 
it  must  be  that  the  wind  brings  it  from  Touggourt." 

"It  is  not  possible,  Sidi,"  the  camel-man,  husband 
of  Khadra,  persisted.  "Besides,  there  is  no  great  feast- 

1278 


"  WHERE  THE  STRANGE  ROADS  GO  DOWN  "    279 

day  at  this  time,  not  even  a  wedding  or  a  circumcision, 
or  we  should  have  heard  before  we  started  away  that  it 
was  to  be.  Such  playing,  if  from  the  hands  of  man,  would 
mean  some  great  event." 

Even  as  he  spoke  the  music  grew  louder  and  wilder. 
Max  hurried  the  caravan  on  as  fast  as  it  could  go  among 
the  sand  billows,  fearing  that  the  Arabs'  superstition 
might  cause  a  stampede.  With  every  stride  of  the  camels' 
long,  four-jointed  legs,  the  music  swelled;  and  at  the  crest 
of  a  higher  dune  than  any  they  had  climbed,  Sanda,  lean- 
ing out  of  her  bassourah,  gave  a  cry. 

"A  caravan  —  oh!  but  a  huge  caravan  like  an  army," 
she  exclaimed,  "or  like  a  troop  of  ghosts.  What  if  — 
what  if  it  should  be  Sir  Knight  just  starting  away  ?  " 

"I  think  it  is  he,"  Max  answered  heavily.  "I  think  it 
must  be  Stanton  getting  off." 

"We  shall  meet  him.  I  can  wish  him  good-bye  and 
Godspeed!  Soldier"  (this  was  the  name  she  had  given 
Max),  "it  does  seem  as  if  heaven  must  have  timed  our 
coming  and  his  going  for  this  moment." 

"Or  the  devil,"  Max  amended  bitterly  in  his  heart. 
But  aloud  he  said  nothing.  He  knew  that  if  he  had 
spoken  Sanda  would  not  have  heard  him  then. 

"Let's  hurry  on,"  she  begged,  "and  meet  him  —  and 
surprise  him.  He  can't  be  angry.  He  must  be  glad  for 
father's  sake,  if  not  for  mine.  Oh!  come,  Soldier,  come, 
or  I  will  go  alone!" 

The  man  whose  duty  it  was  to  guide  her  camel  had 
dropped  behind,  as  had  often  happened  before  at  her  wish 
and  Max's  order,  for  the  mehari  was  a  well-trained  and 
gentle  beast,  knowing  by  instinct  the  right  thing  to  do. 


280  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

Now  Sanda  leaned  far  out  and  touched  him  on  the  neck. 
Squatting  in  the  way  of  camels  brought  up  among  dunes, 
he  slid  down  the  side  of  a  big  golden  billow,  sending  up  a 
spray  of  sand  as  he  descended.  Below  lay  a  valley,  where 
the  blue  dusk  poured  in  its  tide;  and  marching  through 
the  azure  flood  a  train  of  dark  forms  advanced  rhythmi- 
cally, as  if  moving  to  the  music  which  they  had  outstripped. 
It  was  a  long  procession  of  men  and  camels  bearing  heavy 
loads,  so  long  that  the  end  of  it  had  not  yet  come  into 
sight  behind  the  next  sand  billow;  but  at  its  head  a  man 
rode  on  a  horse,  alone,  with  no  one  at  his  side.  Already 
it  was  too  dark  to  see  his  face,  but  Max  knew  who  it  was. 
He  felt  the  man's  identity  with  an  instinct  as  unerring 
as  Sanda's. 

Also  he  longed  to  hasten  after  her  and  catch  up  with 
the  running  camel,  as  he  could  easily  do,  for  his  horse, 
though  more  delicate  and  not  as  enduring,  could  go  faster. 
But,  though  Sanda  had  cried  "  Come ! "  he  held  back.  She 
had  hardly  known  what  she  said.  She  did  not  want  him 
to  be  with  her  when  she  met  Stanton;  and  if  he  —  Max  — 
wished  to  be  there,  it  was  a  morbid  wish.  Whether 
Stanton  were  kind  or  unkind  to  the  girl,  he,  the  outsider, 
would  suffer  more  than  he  need  let  himself  suffer,  since 
he  was  not  needed  and  would  only  be  in  the  way.  Riding 
slowly  and  keeping  back  the  men  of  his  own  little  caravan, 
who  wished  to  dash  forward  now  their  superstitious  fears 
were  put  to  flight,  Max  saw  Stanton  rein  up  his  horse  as 
the  mehari,  bearing  a  woman's  bassourah,  loped  toward 
him;  saw  him  stop  in  surprise,  and  then,  no  doubt  recog- 
nizing the  face  framed  by  the  curtains,  jump  off  his  horse 
and  stride  forward  through  the  silky  mesh  of  sand  holding 


"  WHERE  THE  STRANGE  ROADS  GO  DOWN  "  281 
out  his  arms.  The  next  instant  he  had  the  girl  in  them, 
was  lifting  her  down  without  waiting  for  the  camel  to 
kneel,  for  she  had  sprung  to  him  as  if  from  the  crest  of  a 
breaking  wave;  and  Max  bit  back  an  oath  as  he  had  to  see 
Ahmara's  lover  crush  Sanda  DeLisle  against  his  breast. 

It  was  only  for  an  instant,  perhaps,  but  for  Max  it  was 
a  red-hot  eternity.  He  forgot  his  resolution  to  efface  him- 
self, and  whipped  his  horse  forward.  By  the  time  he  had 
reached  the  two  figures  in  the  sand,  however,  the  big, 
square-shouldered  man  in  khaki  and  the  slim  girl  in 
white  had  a  little  space  between  them.  Stanton  had  re- 
leased Sanda  from  his  arms  and  set  her  on  her  feet;  but  he 
held  both  the  little  white  hands  in  his  brown  ones;  and 
now  that  Max  was  near  he  could  see  a  look  on  the  square 
sunburnt  face  which  might  have  won  any  woman,  even  if 
she  had  not  been  his  in  heart  already.  Max  himself  was 
thrilled  by  it.  He  realized  as  he  had  realized  in  Algiers, 
but  a  thousand  times  more  keenly,  the  vital,  compelling 
magnetism  of  the  man. 

No  need  for  Sanda  to  wonder  whether  "Sir  Knight'' 
would  be  glad  to  see  her!  He  was  glad,  brutally  glad  it 
seemed  to  Max,  as  the  lion  might  be  glad  after  long, 
lonely  ways  to  chance  upon  his  young  and  willing  mate. 

"  Curse  him !  How  dare  he  look  at  her  like  that,  after 
Ahmara! "  thought  Max.  His  blood  sang  in  his  ears  like 
the  wicked  voice  of  the  raita  following  the  caravan.  All 
that  was  in  him  of  primitive  man  yearned  to  dash  be- 
tween the  two  and  snatch  Sanda  from  Stanton.  But  the 
soldier  in  him,  which  discipline  and  modern  conventions 
had  made,  held  him  back.  Sanda  was  Mademoiselle  De- 
Lisle,  the  daughter  of  his  colonel.  He  who  had  been  Max 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

Doran  was  now  nobody  save  Maxime  St.  George,  a  little 
corporal  in  the  Foreign  Legion,  with  hardly  enough  money 
left  to  buy  cigarettes.  Ahmara  had  been  an  episode. 
Now  the  episode  was  over,  and  in  all  probability  Sanda,  like 
most  women,  would  have  forgiven  it  if  she  knew.  She 
was  happy  in  Stanton's  overmastering  look.  She  did  not 
feel  it  an  insult,  or  dream  that  the  devouring  flame  in  the 
blue  eyes  was  only  a  spurt  of  new  fire  in  the  ashes  of  a 
burnt-out  passion. 

She  must  be  mistaking  it  for  love,  and  her  heart  must  be 
shaken  to  ecstasy  by  the  surprise  and  joy  of  the  miracle. 
Max  knew  that  if  he  rudely  rode  up  to  them  in  this,  Sanda 's 
great  moment,  nothing  he  could  say  or  do  would  really 
part  them,  even  if  he  were  cad  enough  to  speak  of  Ahmara, 
the  dancer.  Sanda  would  not  believe,  or  else  she  would 
not  care;  and  always,  for  the  rest  of  her  life,  she  would 
hate  him.  He  pulled  up  his  horse  as  he  thought,  and  sat 
as  though  he  were  in  chains.  He  was,  according  to  his 
reckoning,  out  of  earshot,  but  Stanton's  deep  baritone 
had  the  carrying  power  of  a  'cello.  Max  heard  it  say  in  a 
tone  to  reach  a  woman's  heart:  "Child!  You  come  to  me 
like  a  white  dove.  God  bless  you!  I  needed  you.  I 
don't  know  whether  I  can  let  you  go." 

Slowly  Max  turned  his  horse's  head,  and  still  more 
slowly  rode  back  to  the  caravan  which  he  had  halted  fifty 
feet  away.  For  an  instant  he  hoped  against  hope  that 
Sanda  would  hear  the  sound  of  his  going,  that  she  would 
look  after  him  and  call.  But  deep  down  in  himself  he 
knew  that  no  girl  in  her  place,  feeling  as  she  felt,  would 
have  heard  a  cannon-shot.  He  explained  to  the  astonished 
men  that  this  was  the  great  explorer,  the  Sidi  who  found 


"WHERE  THE  STRANGE  ROADS  GO  DOWN"  283 
new  countries  where  no  other  white  men  had  ever  been, 
and  the  young  Roumia  lady  had  known  him  ever  since  she 
was  a  child.  The  Sidi  was  starting  out  on  a  dangerous 
expedition,  and  it  was  well  that  chance  had  brought  them 
together,  for  now  the  daughter  of  the  explorer's  oldest 
friend  could  bid  him  good-bye.  They  must  wait  until  the 
farewell  had  been  given,  then  they  would  go  on  again. 

The  camel-men  assented  politely,  without  comment. 
But  Max  heard  Khadra  say  to  her  husband,  "It  is  the 
Sidi  who  loved  Ahmara.  One  would  think  he  had  for- 
gotten her  now.  Or  is  it  that  he  tries  this  way  to  forget?  " 

Max  wished  angrily  that  his  ears  were  less  quick,  and 
that  he  had  not  such  a  useless  facility  for  picking  up 
words  out  of  every  patois. 

Half  an  hour  passed,  and  the  blue  shadows  deepened  to 
purple.  It  was  night,  and  Touggourt  miles  away.  Still 
the  two  were  talking,  and  the  darkness  had  closed  around 
them  like  the  curtains  of  a  tent.  They  had  halted  not 
only  the  little  caravan  returning  from  the  south,  but  the 
great  caravan  starting  for  the  far  southeast.  Nothing 
was  of  importance  to  Stanton  and  Sanda  except  each 
other  and  themselves.  Max  hated  Stanton,  yet  was  fas- 
cinated by  the  thought  of  him :  virile,  magnetic,  compel- 
ling; a  man  among  men;  greater  than  his  fellows,  as  the 
great  stars  above,  flaming  into  life,  were  brighter  than 
their  dim  brothers. 

The  music,  which  still  throbbed  and  screamed  its  notes 
of  passion  in  the  desert,  seemed  to  be  beating  in  Max's 
brain.  A  horrible  irritation  possessed  him  like  a  devil.  He 
could  have  yelled  as  a  man  might  yell  in  the  extremity  of 
physical  torture.  If  only  that  music  would  stop ! 


284  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

When  he  had  almost  reached  the  limit  of  endurance 
there  came  a  soft  padding  of  feet  in  the  sand  and  a 
murmur  of  voices.  Then  he  saw  Stanton  walking  toward 
him  with  the  girl.  Sanda  called  to  him  timidly,  yet  with 
a  quiver  of  excitement  in  her  voice : 

"Monsieur  St.  George,  mon  ami!" 

Not  "Soldier"  now!  That  phase  was  over.  Max  got 
off  his  horse  and  walked  to  meet  the  pair. 

"You  know  each  other,"  Sanda  said.  "I  introduced 
you  last  March  in  Algiers.  And  perhaps  you  met  again 
here  in  Touggourt  with  my  father,  not  many  days  ago. 
I've  told  Mr.  Stanton  all  about  you  now,  mon  ami;  he 
knows  how  good  you  have  been.  He  knows  how  I  —  con- 
fided things  to  you  I  never  told  to  anybody  else.  Do  you 
remember,  Monsieur  St.  George,  my  saying  how,  when 
I  was  small,  I  used  to  long  to  run  away  dressed  like  a  boy, 
and  go  on  a  desert  journey  with  Richard  Stanton?  Well, 
my  wish  has  come  true!  Not  about  the  boy's  clothes, 
but  —  I  am  going  with  him !  He  has  asked  me  to  be  his 
wife,  and  I  have  said  'yes-' ' 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE   MAD   MUSIC 

MAX  was  struck  dumb  by  the  shock.  He  had  expected 
nothing  so  devastating  as  this.  What  to  do  he  knew  not, 
yet  something  he  must  do.  If  he  had  not  loved  the  girl, 
it  would  have  been  easier.  There  would  have  been  no 
fear  then  that  he  might  think  of  himself  and  not  of  her. 
Yet  she  had  been  put  under  his  charge  by  Colonel  DeLisle. 
He  was  responsible  for  her  welfare  and  her  safety.  Ought 
he  to  constitute  himself  her  guardian  and  stand  between 
her  and  this  man?  On  the  other  hand,  could  he  attempt 
playing  out  a  farce  of  guardianship —  he,  almost  a  stranger, 
and  a  boy  compared  to  Stanton,  who  had  been,  according 
to  Sanda,  informally  her  guardian  when  she  was  a  little 
girl?  Max  stammered  a  few  words,  not  knowing  what  he 
said,  or  whether  he  were  speaking  sense,  but  Stanton  paid 
him  the  compliment  of  treating  him  like  a  reasonable  man. 
Suddenly  Max  became  conscious  that  the  explorer  was 
deliberately  focussing  upon  him  all  the  intense  magnetism 
which  had  won  adherents  to  the  wildest  schemes. 

"I  understand  exactly  what  you  are  thinking  about 
me,"  Stanton  said.  "You  must  feel  I  am  mad  or  a  brute 
to  want  this  child  to  go  with  me  across  the  desert,  to 
share  the  fate  all  Europe  is  prophesying." 

"It's  glory  to  share  it,"  broke  in  Sanda,  in  a  voice  like 

285 


286  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

a  harp.  "  Do  I  care  what  happens  to  me  if  I  can  be  with 
you?" 

Stanton  laughed  a  delightful  laugh. 

"She  is  a  child  —  an  infatuated  child!  But  shouldn't 
I  be  more  —  or  less  —  than  a  man,  if  I  could  let  such  a 
stroke  of  luck  pass  by  me?  You  see,  she  wants  to  go." 

"He  knows  I  love  you,  and  have  loved  you  all  my  life," 
said  Sanda.  "  I  told  him  in  Algiers  when  I  was  so  miser- 
able, thinking  that  I  should  never  see  you  again,  and  that 
you  didn't  care." 

"Of  course  I  cared,"  Stanton  contradicted  her  warmly; 
yet  there  was  a  difference  in  his  tone.  To  Max's  ears, 
it  did  not  ring  true.  "Seeing  a  grown-up  Sanda,  when 
I'd  always  kept  in  my  mind's  eye  a  little  girl,  bowled  me 
over.  I  made  excuses  to  get  away  in  a  hurry,  didn't  I? 
It  was  the  bravest  thing  I  ever  did.  I  knew  I  wasn't 
a  marble  statue.  But  it  was  another  thing  keeping  my 
head  in  broad  daylight  on  the  terrace  of  a  hotel,  with  a 
lot  of  dressed-up  creatures  coming  and  going,  from  what 
it  is  here  in  the  desert  at  night,  with  that  mad  music 
playing  me  away  into  the  unknown,  and  a  girl  like  Sanda 
flashing  down  like  a  falling  star." 

"The  star  fell  into  your  arms,  and  you  saved  it  from 
extinction,"  she  finished  for  him,  laughing  a  little  gurgling 
laugh  of  ecstasy. 

"  I  caught  it  on  its  way  somewhere  else !  But  how  can 
I  let  it  go  when  it  wants  to  shine  for  me?  How  can  I  be 
expected  to  let  it  go?  I  ask  you  that,  St.  George!" 

Racked  with  an  anguish  of  jealousy,  Max  felt,  never- 
theless, a  queer  stirring  of  sympathy  for  the  man;  and 
struggling  against  it,  he  knew  Stanton's  conquering 


THE  MAD  MUSIC  287 

fascination.  He  knew,  also,  that  nothing  he  could  do 
or  say  would  prevent  Sanda  from  going  with  her  hero. 
However,  he  stammered  a  protest. 

"But  —  but  I  don't  see  what's  to  be  done,"  he  said, 
"Mademoiselle  DeLisle's  father,  my  colonel,  ordered  me 
to  take  her  to  Sidi-bel- Abbes." 

"Not  ordered;  asked!"  the  girl  cut  in  with  an  unfair- 
ness that  hurt. 

"All  the  blame  is  mine,"  Stanton  assured  him  with  a 
warm  friendliness  of  manner.  "My  shoulders  are  broad 
enough  to  bear  it.  And  you  know,  St.  George,  your 
colonel  and  I  are  old  friends.  If  he  were  here  he'd  give 
his  consent,  I  think,  after  he'd  got  over  his  first  surprise. 
I  believe  as  his  proxy  you'll  do  the  same,  when  you've 
taken  a  little  time  to  reflect." 

"Why,  of  course  he  will!"  cried  Sanda,  sweet  and 
repentant.  "He  knows  that  this  is  my  one  chance  of 
happiness  in  life.  Everything  looked  so  gray  in  the  fu- 
ture. I  was  going  to  Sidi-bel-Abbes  to  be  with  strangers 
till  my  father  came.  And  even  at  best,  though  he  loves 
me,  I  am  a  burden  and  a  worry  to  him.  Then,  suddenly, 
comes  this  glorious  joy !  My  Knight,  my  one  Sir  Knight, 
wants  me,  and  cares !  If  I  knew  I  were  going  straight  to 
death,  I'd  go  just  the  same,  and  just  as  joyously." 

"  We  both  realized  what  was  in  our  hearts,  and  what 
must  happen,  when  she  looked  out  between  her  curtains 
like  the  Blessed  Damozel,  and  I  took  her  out  of  her  bas- 
sourah  and  held  her  in  my  arms.  That  settled  our  fate," 
said  Stanton,  attractively  boyish  and  eager  in  the  warmth 
of  his  passion.  It  was  genuine  passion.  There  was  no 
doubting  that,  but  lit  in  an  instant,  like  a  burnt  wick  still 


288  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

warm  from  a  flame  blown  out.  How  long  would  it  last? 
How  clear  and  true  a  light  would  it  give?  Max  did  not 
know  how  much  of  his  doubt  of  Stanton  was  jealousy, 
how  much  regard  for  Sanda's  happiness. 

"To  think  this  should  come  to  me  at  Touggourt,  where 
my  father's  happiness  came  to  him!"  Sanda  murmured 
rapturously,  as  Max  stood  silent.  "It  is  Fate,  indeed!" 

"Listen  to  the  music  of  Africa,"  said  Stanton.  "The 
players  followed  us  for  'luck.'  What  luck  they've  brought! 
Child,  I  was  feeling  lonely  and  sad.  I  almost  had  a 
presentiment  that  my  luck  was  out.  What  a  fool! 
All  the  strength  and  courage  I've  ever  had  you've  given 
back  to  me  with  yourself!" 

"I  could  die  of  happiness  to  hear  you  say  that!'*  Sanda 
answered.  "You  see  how  it  is,  my  friend,  my  dear,  kind 
soldier?  God  has  timed  my  coming  here  to  give  me  this 
wonderful  gift!  You  wouldn't  rob  me  of  it  if  you  could, 
would  you?" 

"Not  if  it's  for  your  happiness,"  Max  heard  something 
that  was  only  half  himself  answer.  "But"  —  and  he 
turned  on  Stanton  —  "how  do  you  propose  to  marry  her 
-here?" 

The  other  hesitated  for  an  instant,  then  replied  briskly, 
as  if  he  had  calculated  everything  in  detail.  This  was 
characteristic  of  him,  to  map  out  a  plan  of  campaign  as 
he  went  along,  as  fast  as  he  drew  breath  for  the  rushing 
words.  Often  he  had  made  his  greatest  impressions,  his 
greatest  successes,  in  this  wild  way. 

"Why,  you  will  pitch  your  camp  here  for  the  night, 
instead  of  marching  on  to  Touggourt,"  he  said.  "I  camp 
here,  too.  My  expedition  is  delayed  for  one  day  more, 


THE  MAD  MUSIC  289 

but  what  does  that  matter  after  a  hundred  delays?  Heav- 
ens! I've  had  to  wait  for  tents  a  beast  of  a  Jew 
contracted  to  give  me  and  didn't.  I've  waited  to  test 
water-skins.  I've  waited  for  new  camel-men  when  old 
ones  failed  me.  Haven't  I  a  right  to  wait  a  few  hours 
for  a  companion  —  a  wife?  The  first  thing  in  the  morn- 
ing we'll  have  the  priest  out  from  Touggourt.  Sanda's 
Catholic.  He'll  marry  us  and  we'll  start  on  together." 

"Couldn't  we,"  the  girl  rather  timidly  ventured  the 
suggestion,  "couldn't  we  go  to  Touggourt?  There  must 
be  a  church  there  if  there's  a  priest,  and  I  —  I'd  like  to  be 
married  in  a  church. " 

"My  darling  child!  The  priest  shall  consecrate  a  tent, 
or  a  bit  of  the  desert,"  Stanton  answered  with  decision, 
which,  she  must  have  realized,  would  be  useless  to  combat. 
"He'll  do  it  all  right !  Marriage  ceremonies  are  performed 
by  Catholic  priests  in  houses,  you  know,  if  the  man  or  the 
woman  is  ill;  deathbed  marriages,  and  —  but  don't  let  us 
talk  of  such  things!  I  know  I  can  make  him  do  this  when 
I  show  him  how  impossible  it  would  be  for  us  to  go  back 
to  Touggourt.  Why,  the  men  I've  got  together,  mostly 
blacks,  would  take  it  for  a  bad  omen  if  I  left  the  escort 
stranded  here  in  the  desert  the  first  day  out!  Half  of 
them  would  bolt.  I'd  have  the  whole  work  to  do  over 
again.  You  see  that,  don't  you? " 

Sanda  did  see;  and  even  Max  admitted  to  himself  that 
the  excuse  was  plausible.  Yet  he  suspected  another 
reason  behind  the  one  alleged.  Stanton  was  afraid  of 
things  Sanda  might  hear  in  Touggourt;  perhaps  he  feared 
some  more  active  peril. 

"I  thought,"  Max  dared  to  argue,  "that  it  took  days 


290  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

arranging  the  legal  part  of  a  marriage?  You're  an  English- 
man, Mr.  Stanton,  and  Colonel  DeLisle's  daughter's  a 
French  subject,  though  she  is  hah*  British.  You  may  find 
difficulties." 

"Damn  difficulties!"  exclaimed  Stanton,  all  his  savage 
impatience  of  opposition  breaking  out  at  last.  "Don't 
you  say  so,  Sanda?  When  a  man  and  woman  need  each 
other's  companionship  in  lonely  places  outside  the  world, 
is  the  world's  red  tape  going  to  make  a  barrier  between 
them?  My  God,  no!  Sanda,  if  your  church  will  give 
you  to  me,  and  send  us  into  the  desert  with  its  blessing, 
is  it,  or  is  it  not,  enough  for  you?  If  not,  you're  not  the 
girl  I  want.  You're  not  my  woman." 

"If  you  love  me,  I  am  'your  woman,'"  said  Sanda. 

"You  hear  her?"  Stanton  asked.  "If  it's  enough  for 
her,  I  suppose  it's  enough  for  you,  St.  George?  " 

Through  the  blue  dusk  two  blue  eyes  stared  into  Max's 
face.  They  put  a  question  without  words.  "Have  you 
any  reason  of  your  own  for  wanting  to  keep  her  from  me?  " 

"Will  it  be  enough  for  Colonel  DeLisle?"  Max  per- 
sisted. 

"I  promised  to  shoulder  all  responsibility  with  him," 
repeated  Stanton. 

"And  father  would  be  the  last  man  in  the  world  to 
spoil  two  lives  for  a  convention,"  Sanda  added.  "Do 
you  remember  his  love  story  that  I  told  you?  " 

Did  Max  remember?  It  was  not  a  story  to  forget, 
that  tragic  tale  of  love  and  death  in  the  desert.  Must 
the  story  of  the  daughter  be  tragic,  too?  A  great  fear  for 
the  girl  was  in  his  heart.  He  believed  that  he  could  think 
of  her  alone,  now,  apart  from  selfishness.  Realizing  her 


THE  MAD  MUSIC  291 

worship  of  Stanton,  had  her  fate  lain  in  his  hands  he 
would  have  placed  it  in  those  of  the  other  man  could 
he  have  been  half  sure  they  would  be  tender.  But  her 
fate  was  in  her  own  keeping.  He  could  do  no  more  than 
beg,  for  DeLisle's  sake,  that  they  would  wait  for  the  wed- 
ding until  Stanton  came  back  from  his  expedition.  Even 
as  he  spoke,  it  seemed  strange  and  almost  absurd  that 
he  should  be  urging  legal  formalities  upon  any  one,  es- 
pecially a  man  like  Stanton,  almost  old  enough  to  be  his 
father.  What,  after  all,  did  law  matter  in  the  desert  if  two 
people  loved  each  other?  And  as  Stanton  said  —  patient 
and  pleasant  again  after  his  outburst  —  they  could  have  all 
the  legal  business,  to  make  things  straight  in  the  silly  eyes 
of  the  silly  world,  when  they  won  through  to  Egypt,  under 
English  law. 

The  matter  settled  itself  exactly  as  it  would  have 
settled  itself  had  Max  stormed  protests  for  an  hour.  Sanda 
was  to  be  married  by  the  Catholic  priest  from  Touggourt, 
as  early  in  the  morning  as  he  could  be  fetched.  The 
great  caravan  and  the  little  caravan  halted  for  the  night. 
Stanton  harangued  his  escort  in  their  own  various  dialects, 
for  there  was  no  obscure  lingo  of  Africa  which  he  did  not 
know,  and  this  knowledge  gave  him  much  of  his  power  over 
the  black  or  brown  men.  The  news  he  told,  explaining  the 
delay,  was  received  with  wild  shouts  of  amused  approval. 
Stanton  was  allowing  some  of  his  head  men  to  travel  with 
their  wives,  it  being  their  concern,  not  his,  if  the  women 
died  and  rotted  in  the  desert.  It  was  his  concern  only  to 
be  popular  as  a  leader  on  this  expedition  for  which  it  had 
been  hard  to  get  recruits.  It  was  fair  that  he,  too,  should 
have  a  wife  if  he  wanted  one,  and  the  men  cared  as  little 


292 

what  became  of  the  white  girl  they  had  not  seen  as  Stan- 
ton  cared  about  the  fate  of  their  strapping  females. 

The  mad  music  of  the  tomtoms  and  raitas  played  as 
Max,  with  his  own  hands,  set  up  Sanda  's  little  tent.  "  For 
the  last  time,"  he  said  to  himself.  "To-morrow  night 
her  tent  will  be  Stanton's." 

He  felt  physically  sick  as  he  thought  of  leaving  her  in 
the  desert  with  that  man,  whom  they  called  mad,  and 
going  on  alone  to  report  at  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  days  after  his 
leave  had  expired.  Now  that  Sanda  was  staying  behind, 
his  best  excuse  was  taken  from  him.  He  could  hear  him- 
self making  futile-sounding  explanations,  but  keeping 
Mademoiselle  DeLisle's  name  in  the  background.  None 
save  a  man  present  at  the  scene  he  had  gone  through 
could  possibly  pardon  him  for  abandoning  his  charge. 
After  all,  however,  what  did  it  matter?  He  did  not  care 
what  became  of  him,  even  if  his  punishment  were  to  be 
years  in  the  African  penal  battalion,  the  awful  Bat  d  ^Aff, 
a  sentence  of  death  in  life.  "Perhaps  I  deserve  it,"  he 
said.  "I  don't  know!"  All  he  did  know  was  that  he 
would  give  his  life  for  Sanda.  Yet  it  seemed  that  he  could 
do  nothing. 

When  all  was  quiet  he  went  to  his  tent  and  threw  him- 
self down  just  inside  the  entrance  with  the  flap  up.  Lying 
thus,  he  could  see  Sanda 's  tent  not  far  away,  dim  in  the 
starlit  night.  He  could  not  see  her,  nor  did  he  wish  to. 
But  he  knew  she  was  sitting  in  the  doorway  with  Stanton 
at  her  feet.  Max  did  not  mean  to  spy;  but  he  was  afraid 
for  her,  of  Stanton,  while  that  music  played.  At  last  he 
heard  her  lover  in  going  call  out  "good  night,"  then  it 
was  no  longer  necessary  to  play  sentinel,  but  though  Sanda 


THE  MAD  MUSIC  -j<>.; 

had  slipped  inside  her  tent,  perhaps  to  dream  of  to-morrow, 
it  seemed  to  Max  that  there  were  no  drugs  in  the  world 
strong  enough  to  give  him  sleep.  He  supposed,  vaguely, 
that  if  a  priest  consented  to  marry  the  girl  to  Stanton, 
after  the  wedding  and  the  start  of  the  explorer's  caravan, 
he,  Max,  would  board  the  first  train  he  could  catch  on  the 
new  railway,  and  go  to  "take  his  medicine"  at  Sidi-bel- 
Abbes. 

Before  dawn,  when  Stanton  came  to  tell  Sanda  that  he 
was  off  for  Touggourt  to  fetch  the  priest,  no  alternative  had 
yet  presented  itself  to  Max 's  mind,  and  he  was  still  indif- 
ferent to  his  own  future.  But  when  Stanton  had  been  gone 
for  half  an  hour,  and  a  faint  primrose  coloured  flame  had 
begun  to  quiver  along  the  billowy  horizon  in  the  east,  he 
heard  a  soft  voice  call  his  name,  almost  in  a  whisper. 

"Soldier  St.  George!"  it  said. 

Max  sprang  up,  fully  dressed  as  he  was,  and  went  out  of 
his  tent.  Sanda  was  standing  near,  a  vague  shape  of 
glimmering  white. 


CHAPTER    XXV 

CORPORAL   ST.    GEORGE,    DESERTER 

"Is  ANYTHING  the  matter?"  he  asked.  A  wild  hope 
was  in  his  heart  that  she  might  wish  to  tell  him  she 
had  changed  her  mind.  The  joy  of  that  hope  snatched 
his  breath  away.  But  her  first  words  put  it  to  flight. 

"No,  nothing  is  the  matter,  except  that  I've  been 
thinking  about  you.  I  could  hardly  wait  to  ask  you 
some  things.  But  I  had  to  wait  till  morning.  It  is 
morning  now  that  Richard  is  up  and  has  gone,  even 
though  it  isn't  quite  light.  And  it's  better  to  talk  before 
he  comes  back.  There'll  be  —  so  much  happening 
then You're  all  dressed!  You  didn't  go  to  bed." 

"No,  I  didn't  want  to  sleep,"  said  Max. 

"  I  haven't  slept,  either.  I  didn't  try  to  sleep !  I'm  so 
happy  for  myself,  but  I'm  not  all  happy.  I'm  anxious 
about  you.  I  see  that  I've  been  horribly,  hatefully  sel- 
fish —  a  beast!" 

"Don't!     I  won't  hear  you  say  such  things." 

"You  mustn't  try  and  put  me  off.  Will  you  promise 
by  —  by  your  love  for  my  father  —  and  your  friendship 
for  me,  to  answer  truly  the  questions  I  ask?" 

"All  I  can  answer." 

"If  you  don't  answer,  I  shall  know  what  your  silence 
means.  Mon  ami,  you  made  a  great  sacrifice  for  me. 

294 


CORPORAL  ST.  GEORGE,  DESERTER     295 

You  gave  up  your  march  to  take  me  safely  to  Bel-Abbes. 
You  had  only  eight  days'  leave  to  do  it  in.  I  know,  be- 
cause my  father  said  so  in  his  letter.  But  I,  thinking 
always  of  myself,  gave  no  thought  to  that.  You  lost 
time  coming  back  from  Djazerta  to  the  douar.  Now 
I've  kept  you  another  night.  Is  there  a  train  to-morrow 
going  out  of  Touggourt?" 

"I  think  so,"  said  Max  warily,  beginning  to  guess  the 
trend  of  her  questions. 

"What  time  does  it  start?" 

"I  don't  know  precisely." 

"In  the  morning  or  at  night?" 

"I  really  can't  tell." 

"You  mean  you  won't.  But  that  does  tell  me,  all  the 
same.  It  goes  in  the  morning.  Soldier,  I've  made  you 
late.  I  see  now  you've  been  very  anxious  all  the  time 
about  overstaying  your  leave,  but  you  wouldn't  speak 
because  it  was  for  my  sake." 

"I've  written  to  the  officer  in  command  at  Sidi-bel- 
Abbes,  explaining.  It  will  be  all  right." 

"It  won't!  You're  keeping  the  truth  from  me.  I  see 
by  your  face.  You've  overstayed  your  leave  already. 
I  calculated  it  out  last  night.  Even  as  it  is,  you  are  a  day 
late." 

"What  of  it?    There's  nothing  to  worry  about." 

"  Do  you  suppose  I  can  be  a  soldier's  daughter  and  not 
have  learned  anything  about  army  life?  Soldier,  much 
as  I'd  want  you  to  stand  by  me  if  it  could  be  right  for 
you,  it  isn't  right,  and  you  must  go!  Go  now,  and  be  in 
time  for  that  train  this  morning.  One  day  late  won't 
be  so  bad.  But  there  won't  be  another  train  till  Monday. 


A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

By  diligence,  it's  two  days  to  Biskra.  That  means  —  oh ! 
go,  my  friend!  Go,  and  forgive  me!  Let  us  say  good- 
bye now!" 

"Not  for  the  world,"  Max  answered.  "Not  if  they'd 
have  me  shot  at  Bel-Abbes,  instead  of  putting  me  into 
cellule  for  a  few  days  at  worst.  Nothing  would  induce 
me  to  leave  you  until "  -  he  choked  a  little  on  the  words 

—  "until  you're  married." 

"Cellule?"  she  echoed.  "You,  in  cellule!  And  your 
corporal's  stripe?  You'll  lose  it!" 

"What  if  I  do?  I  value  it  more  for  —  for  something 
Colonel  DeLisle  said  than  for  itself." 

"I  know  you  were  an  officer  in  your  American  army 
at  home.  To  be  a  corporal  must  seem  laughable  to  you. 
And  yet,  the  stripe  is  more  than  just  a  mere  stripe.  It's 
an  emblem." 

"I  didn't  mean  you  to  think  that  I  don't  value  it!  I 
do!  But  I  value  other  things  more." 

Day  was  quickening  to  life;  Sanda's  wedding  day.  In 
the  wan  light  that  bleached  the  desert  they  looked  at 
each  other,  their  faces  pale.  Max  could  not  take  his 
eyes  from  hers.  She  held  them,  and  he  felt  her  drawing 
from  them  the  truth  his  lips  refused  to  speak. 

"You  are  like  a  man  going  to  his  death,"  she  sobbed. 
"Oh,  what  have  I  done?  It  will  be  something  worse,  a 
thousand  times  worse,  than  cellule.  Mon  Dieu!  I  know 
what  they  do  to  men  of  the  Legion  when  they've  deserted 

—  even  if  they  come  back.     I  implore  you  to  go  away 
now.     Do  you  want  me  to  beg  you  on  my  knees?" 

"For  God's  sake,  Mademoiselle  DeLisle!" 
"Then  will  you  go?" 


CORPORAL  ST.  GEORGE,  DESERTER     297 

"No!  I  told  you  nothing  could  make  me  leave  you 
till  —  after  it's  over.  What  would  be  the  use  anyhow, 
even  if  I  would  go?  If  they're  going  to  call  me  a  deserter! 
I'm  that  already." 

"Ah!"  she  hid  her  face  in  her  hands,  shivering  with 
sobs.  "I've  made  you  a  deserter.  I've  ruined  you! 
Your  career  my  father  hoped  for!  If  he  were  at  Bel- 
Abbes  he'd  save  you.  But  he's  far  away  in  the  desert. " 
The  girl  lifted  her  face  and  brushed  away  the  tears. 
"Soldier,  if  you  don't  go  now,  don't  go  at  all!  Don't  offer 
yourself  up  to  punishment  for  what  is  not  your  fault,  but 
mine,  the  fault  of  your  colonel's  daughter.  Stay  with 
me  —  stay  with  us!  Keep  the  trust  my  father  gave  you, 
watching  over  me.  Will  you  do  that?  Will  you,  instead 
of  going  back  straight  to  prison  and  spoiling  your  life? 
Join  us  and  help  us  to  find  the  Lost  Oasis." 

The  young  man's  blood  rushed  to  his  head.  He  could 
not  speak.  He  could  only  look  at  her. 

"You  say  that  already  you've  made  yourself  a  deserter," 
she  went  on.  "Then  desert  to  us,  I  wanted  you  to  join 
the  Legion,  and  you  did  join;  so  I've  called  you  'my  soldier.' 
Now  I  want  you  not  to  go  back  to  the  Legion.  It  would 
be  a  horrible  injustice  for  you  to  be  punished  as  you 
would  be.  I  couldn't  be  happy  even  with  Richard,  think- 
ing of  you  in  prison." 

"The  world  is  a  prison,  if  it  comes  to  that!"  laughed 
Max. 

"For  some  people.  Not  for  a  man  like  you!  Besides, 
some  of  the  cells  in  the  world's  prison  are  so  much  more 
terrible  than  others.  Come  with  us,  and  by  and  by,  if  we 
live,  we  shall  reach  Egypt.  There  you'll  be  free,  as 


298  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

Manoel  Valdez  will  be  free  outside  Algeria  and  France." 

"My  colonel's  daughter  asks  me  to  do  this?"  Max 
muttered,  half  under  his  breath. 

"Yes,  because  I  am  his  daughter  as  well  as  your  friend. 
Do  you  think  he'd  like  you  to  go  back  to  Sidi-bel-Abbes 
under  a  cloud,  with  him  far  away,  not  able  to  speak  for 
you?  I  know  as  well  as  if  you'd  told  me  that,  if  they 
tried  you  by  court-martial  at  Oran,  you  wouldn't  defend 
yourself  as  you  would  if  my  father  had  ordered  you  to 
give  up  the  march,  instead  of  asking  you  to  go  on  a 
private  errand  for  him  with  your  friend.  Because  he  did 
an  irregular  thing  and  trouble  has  come  of  it,  don't  I 
know  you'd  suffer  rather  than  let  details  be  dragged  from 
you  which  might  injure  my  father's  record  as  an  officer?" 

"His  record  is  far  above  being  injured." 

"Is  any  officer's?  From  things  I've  heard,  I'm  afraid 
not !  Once  I  told  you  that  you  were  one  of  those  men  who 
think  too  little  of  themselves  and  sacrifice  themselves 
for  others.  I  only  felt  it  then.  I  know  it  now.  I'm  so 
much  better  acquainted  with  you,  my  Soldier!  You 
promised,  if  you  answered  my  questions,  to  answer  them 
truly.  Would  you  explain  in  a  court-martial  that  my 
father  took  you  off  duty,  and  told  you,  whatever  happened, 
to  look  after  me?  " 

"I  have  already  explained  in  a  letter  to  the  deputy 
commanding  officer.  Probably  the  colonel  has  explained, 
too  —  more  or  less,  as  much  as  necessary." 

"I  don't  believe  father  would  have  thought  it  necessary 
to  say  much  about  me.  He's  old  fashioned  in  his  ideas  of 
women  and  girls.  And,  you  see,  he  had  no  reason  to  dream 
that  anything  could  go  wrong.  He  supposed  that  you 


CORPORAL  ST.   GEORGE,  DESERTER     299 

would  arrive  on  time.    How  much  did  you  explain  in  vour 

letter?" 

"I  said  I  had  been  unavoidably  delayed  in  finishing  my 
official  errand." 

"What  would  you  say  if  you  were  court-martialled  for 
losing  Manoel  and  being  five  days  late  yourself?" 

"  I  don't  know.     It  would  depend  on  the  questions." 

"Would  you  answer  in  any  way  that  might  do  harm  to 
my  father,  or  would  you  sacrifice  yourself  again  for  him 
and  for  me?" 

"It  wouldn't  be  a  sacrifice." 

"Do  you  think  you  could  save  yourself  from  prison?" 

"Perhaps  not,  but  I  shouldn't  care." 

"I'd  care.  It  would  break  my  happiness.  Father 
couldn't  tell  you,  as  I  do,  to  join  us,  but  I  know  enough 
about  his  interest  in  you  to  be  sure  that  in  his  heart 
he  would  wish  it,  rather  than  come  back  to  Sidi-bel-Abbes 
and  find  you  in  the  Bat  d'Aff.  I've  heard  all  about 
that,  you  see." 

Max  was  silent  for  a  moment,  thinking,  and  Sanda 
watched  his  face  in  the  growing  light.  It  was  haggard 
and  set  for  a  face  so  young,  but  there  was  still  in  the  eyes, 
which  stared  unseeingly  across  the  desert,  the  warm, 
generous  light  that  had  once  convinced  her  of  the  man's 
heroic  capacity  for  self-sacrifice.  "He  is  one  who  always 
gives,"  she  thought.  And  something  within  her  said 
that  Stanton  was  not  of  those.  He  was  one  born  not  to 
give,  but  to  take.  Yet  how  glad  every  one  must  be,  as 
she  was,  to  give  to  him ! 

Max  was  greatly  surprised  and  deeply  touched  by 
Sanda's  care  for  him  at  such  a  time.  And  he  was  almost 


300  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

bewildered  by  the  strange  answer  that  had  come  to  his 
self-questioning.  He  had  felt  a  passionate  reluctance  to 
leave  her  with  Stanton,  not  only  because  he  himself  loved 
and  wanted  her,  but  because  her  marriage  was  to  be  only 
half  a  marriage,  and  because  Stanton  was  what  he  was. 
If  the  man  tired  of  her,  if  he  found  her  too  delicate  for 
the  trials  she  would  have  to  endure,  the  girl's  life  in  the 
desert  would  be  terribly  hard.  Max  dared  not  think 
what  it  might  be.  He  had  felt  that  it  would  tear  his  heart 
out  to  see  her  going  unprotected  except  by  that  fanatic, 
to  be  swallowed  up  by  the  merciless  mystery  of  the 
desert.  But  because  she  had  decided  to  go,  and  because 
she  thought  she  had  need  of  no  one  in  the  world  except 
Stanton,  Max  had  made  up  his  mind  that  he  must  stand 
by  and  let  her  go.  Now,  suddenly,  it  was  different. 
She  wanted  him  as  well  as  Stanton.  True,  it  was  only 
because  she  wished  to  save  him,  but  she  would  be  grieved 
if  he  refused.  What  if  he  should  accept  —  that  is,  if 
Stanton  were  of  the  same  mind  as  Sanda  —  and  let  them 
both  suppose  that  his  motive  in  joining  them  was  to  keep 
out  of  prison?  He  knew  that  his  true  reason  would  be 
other  than  that  if  he  went.  But  searching  his  soul,  he 
saw  there  no  wrong  to  Stanton's  wife.  He  would  not 
go  with  that  pair  of  lovers  for  his  own  pleasure,  and  no 
suffering  he  could  endure,  even  in  the  Bat  d'Aff,  would 
be  equal  to  seeing  Sanda  day  after  day,  night  after  night, 
when  she  had  given  herself  to  Stanton.  All  he  wanted 
was  to  be  near  her  if  he  were  needed.  He  could  never 
justify  himself  to  Colonel  DeLisle  or  to  any  one  else  in 
the  world  by  telling  the  truth;  but  because  it  was  the 
truth,  in  his  own  eyes  perhaps  he  might  be  justified. 


CORPORAL  ST.  GEORGE,  DESERTER     SOI 

"Have  you  thought  long  enough?"  Sanda  asked. 
"Can't  you  decide,  and  save  my  happiness?" 

Save  her  happiness!     .     .     . 

"I  have  decided,"  Max  said.  ."If  Mr.  Stanton  will 
let  a  deserter  join  his  caravan  I  will  go." 


CHAPTER   XXVI 

SANDA'S  WEDDING  NIGHT 

WHAT  arguments  the  explorer  used  none  save  himself 
and  the  priest  from  Touggourt  would  ever  know.  But 
the  priest  came  and  married  Sanda  to  Stanton  according 
to  the  rites  of  the  Catholic  Church.  In  his  eyes,  as  in 
the  eyes  of  the  girl,  it  was  enough;  for  was  she  not,  in  the 
sight  of  heaven,  a  wife? 

Stanton  professed  himself  not  only  glad,  but  thankful, 
to  have  Max  as  a  recruit  for  his  expedition.  He  agreed 
with  Sanda  that  it  would  be  Quixotic,  in  the  circum- 
stances, to  go  back  to  Sidi-bel- Abbes. 

"You'd  be  a  damn  fool,  my  boy,"  he  said  emphatically, 
"to  go  and  offer  yourself  a  lamb  for  the  sacrifice!"  It 
did  not  occur  to  him  that  Max  was  offering  himself  on 
the  altar  of  another  temple  of  sacrifice.  He  thought  the 
young  man  was  "jolly  lucky"  to  escape  from  the  mess 
he  had  tumbled  into  and  get  the  chance  of  a  glorious 
adventure  with  Richard  Stanton.  It  had  been  a  blow 
and  even  a  humiliation  to  the  explorer  that  all  the  Euro- 
peans he  had  asked  to  accompany  him  had  refused,  either 
on  the  spot,  or  after  deliberation.  He  believed  in  himself 
and  his  vision  so  completely,  and  had  snatched  so  many 
successes  out  of  the  jaws  of  disaster,  that  it  was  galling 
not  to  be  believed  in  by  others,  in  this,  the  crowning 

302 


SAND  A 'S  WEDDING  NIGHT  303 

venture  of  his  life.  If  he  could  find  the  Lost  Oasis  he 
would  be  the  most  famous  man  in  the  world,  or  so  he 
put  it  to  himself;  and  any  European  with  him  would 
share  the  glory.  It  had  been  almost  maddening  to  combat 
vainly,  for  once  in  his  career,  the  objections  and  sneers 
of  skeptics. 

People  had  said  that  if  no  European,  not  even  a  doctor, 
would  join  him  in  his  "mad  mission,"  he  would  be  forced 
to  give  it  up.  But  he  had  found  a  fierce  satisfaction  in 
disappointing  them  and  in  showing  the  world  that  he, 
unaided,  could  carry  through  a  project  which  daunted 
all  who  heard  of  it.  He  had  triumphed  over  immense 
obstacles  in  getting  together  his  caravan,  for  Arabs  and 
Soudanese  had  been  superstitiously  depressed  by  the 
fact  that  the  mighty  Stanton  could  persuade  no  man  of 
his  own  race  to  believe  in  the  Lost  Oasis.  It  was  only 
his  unique  force  of  character  that  had  made  the  expedi- 
tion possible  at  last;  that  and  his  knowledge  of  medicine, 
even  of  "white  and  black"  magic,  his  mastery  of  desert 
dialects,  his  eloquence  in  the  language  of  those  who 
hesitated,  working  them  up  to  his  own  pitch  of  enthu- 
siasm by  descriptions  of  what  he  believed  the  Lost  Oasis 
to  be:  a  land  of  milk  and  honey,  with  wives  and  treasure 
enough  for  all,  even  the  humblest.  Napoleon,  the  great- 
est general  of  the  French,  had  wished  to  search  for  the 
Lost  Oasis,  marching  from  Tripolitania  to  Egypt,  but  had 
abandoned  the  undertaking  because  of  other  duties,  not 
because  he  ceased  to  believe.  The  golden  flower  of  the 
desert  had  been  left  for  Stanton  and  his  band  to  pluck. 
Threats,  persuasion,  bribes,  had  collected  for  him  a  for- 
midable force.  If  he  had  lingered  at  Touggourt,  after 


304  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

getting  the  necessary  men  together,  no  one  had  dared  to 
suggest  in  his  hearing  that  it  was  because  a  desert  dan- 
cing-woman was  beautiful.  He  had  always  had  weighty 
reasons  to  allege,  even  to  himself :  the  stores  were  not  satis- 
factory; the  oil  provided  was  not  good;  camels  fell  ill  and 
substitutes  had  to  be  got;  he  was  obliged  to  wait  for  corn 
to  be  ground  into  the  African  substitute  for  macaroni; 
Winchester  rifles  and  ammunition  promised  for  his  fighting 
men  did  not  turn  up  till  long  after  the  date  specified  in  his 
contract.  But  now  he  was  off  on  the  great  adventure;  and, 
gloriously  sure  that  all  credit  would  be  his,  he  was  sincerely 
glad  to  have  Max  as  a  follower,  humble  yet  congenial. 

His  meeting  with  Sanda  seemed  to  Stanton  a  good 
omen.  Since  Ahmara  had  deserted  him  in  a  fury,  be- 
cause of  the  humiliation  put  upon  her  during  DeLisle's 
visit,  he  had  been  in  a  black  rage.  Days  had  been  lost 
in  searching  for  her,  because  she  had  disappeared.  He 
had  dreamed  at  night  of  choking  the  dancer's  life  out, 
and  shooting  the  man  who  had  stolen  her  from  him,  for 
he  had  no  doubt  of  the  form  her  revenge  had  taken. 
In  the  end,  he  had  decided  to  put  her  from  his  mind,  per- 
suading himself  that  he  was  sick  to  death  of  the  tigress- 
woman  whom  he  had  thought  of  carrying  with  him  on  the 
long  desert  march.  Still,  he  had  been  sad  and  thwarted, 
and  the  music  of  the  tomtoms  and  raitas,  instead  of 
tributes  to  his  triumph,  had  been  like  voices  mocking  at 
his  failure.  Then  Sanda  had  magically  appeared  in  the 
desert:  fair  and  sweet  as  the  moon  in  contrast  with  the 
parching  sun.  He  had  held  out  his  arms  on  the  impulse 
and  she  had  fallen  into  them.  Her  youth,  her  white 
beauty  in  the  blue  night,  lit  a  flame  in  him,  and  he  fanned 


SANDA'S  WEDDING  NIGHT  305 

it  greedily.  It  was  good  to  know  that  he  was  young 
enough  still  to  light  another  fire  so  soon  on  half-cold  ashes. 
He  revelled  in  making  himself  believe  that  he  loved  the 
girl.  He  respected  and  admired  himself  for  it,  and  he 
drank  in  eagerly  the  story  she  told  him  in  whispers,  at 
the  door  of  her  tent  in  the  night:  the  story  of  childish, 
hopeless  hero-worship  for  her  "Sir  Knight."  He  was  so 
confident  of  her  adoring  love  that  jealousy  of  Max  would 
have  seemed  absurd,  though  Max  was  twenty-six  and 
Stanton  twenty  years  older.  If  it  had  occurred  to  him 
that  Max  might  be  romantically  in  love  with  Sanda,  the 
idea  would  not  have  displeased  him  or  made  him  hesitate 
to  take  the  younger  man  as  a  member  of  his  escort. 
There  was  a  cruel  streak  running  through  Stanton's  na- 
ture which  even  Sanda  dimly  realized,  though  it  did  not 
diminish  her  love.  There  were  moods  when  he  enjoyed 
seeing  pain  and  inflicting  it;  and  there  were  stories  told 
of  things  he  had  done  in  such  moods :  stories  told  in  whis- 
pers; tales  of  whipping  black  men  to  death  when  they 
had  been  caught  deserting  from  his  caravans;  tales  of 
striking  down  insubordinates  and  leaving  them  uncon- 
scious to  die  in  the  desert.  It  would  have  amused  Stanton, 
if  the  idea  had  presented  itself,  to  think  of  a  love-sick 
young  man  helplessly  watching  him  teach  an  uninstructed 
young  girl  the  art  of  becoming  a  woman.  But  the  idea 
did  not  present  itself.  He  was  too  deeply  absorbed  in  him- 
self, and  in  trying  to  think  how  infinitely  superior  was  a 
white  dove  like  Sanda  to  a  creature  of  the  Ahmara  type. 
He  wished  savagely  that  Ahmara  might  hear  — when 
it  was  too  late  —  of  his  marriage  within  a  few  days  after 
their  parting. 


306  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

When  the  wedding  ceremony  was  over  the  caravan 
started  on  at  once,  in  order  to  reach,  not  too  late,  a  certain 
small  oasis  on  the  route  where  Stanton  wished  to  camp 
on  his  marriage  night.  He  described  the  place  glowingly  to 
Max.  There  was  no  town  there,  he  said,  only  a  few  tents 
belonging  to  the  chief  of  a  neighbour  tribe  to  Ben  Raana's. 
The  men  there  guarded  an  artesian  well  whose  water 
spouted  up  like  a  fountain.  Though  the  oasis  was  small, 
its  palms  were  unusually  beautiful,  and  the  group 
of  tall  trees  with  their  spreading  branches  was  like  a 
green  temple  set  in  the  midst  of  the  desert.  Altogether, 
Stanton  remarked,  it  was  an  ideal  spot  for  the  beginning 
of  a  honeymoon.  His  eyes  were  more  brilliant  than  ever 
as  he  spoke,  and  Max  turned  his  head  away  not  to  see  the 
other  man's  face,  because  the  look  on  it  made  him  want 
to  kill  Stanton.  The  martyrdom  he  knew  awaited  him 
had  already  begun. 

Before  starting  into  the  unknown  Max  bought  from 
the  leader  of  his  own  camel-men  some  garments  which 
Khadra  had  washed  for  her  husband  at  Ben  Raana's 
douar.  They  were  to  be  ready  for  his  return  to  Touggourt , 
and  were  still  as  clean  as  the  brackish  water  of  the  desert 
could  make  them.  Dressed  as  an  Arab,  Max  made  a 
parcel  of  his  uniform  with  its  treasured  red  stripes  of  a 
corporal;  and  having  addressed  it  for  the  post,  paid  the 
camel-driver  to  send  it  off  for  him  from  Touggourt  to 
Sidi-bel- Abbes.  The  unpardonable  sin  of  a  deserting 
Legionnaire  is  to  rob  France  of  the  uniform  lent  him  for 
his  soldiering.  But  returning  her  property  to  the  Re- 
public, Max  sent  no  letter  of  regret  or  apology.  He  was  a 
deserter,  and  to  excuse  himself  for  deserting  would  be  an 


SANDA'S  WEDDING  NIGHT  307 

insult  to  the  Legion.  Nobody  except  DeLisle  could  pos- 
sibly understand,  and  Max  did  not  mean  to  offer  ex- 
planations, even  to  his  colonel.  If  in  his  heart  Sanda's 
father  could  ever  secretly  pardon  a  deserter,  it  must  be 
of  his  own  accord,  not  because  of  what  that  deserter  had 
to  say  on  his  own  behalf. 

Out  of  the  little  caravan  Max  had  to  discharge,  Stan- 
ton  kept  the  mehari  with  the  bassourah  which  Sanda  had 
ridden  during  the  journey  from  Ben  Raana's  douar.  It 
was,  he  said,  laughing,  a  present  direct  from  Providence 
to  his  bride,  since  not  without  delay  could  he  have  pro- 
vided her  with  anything  so  comfortable  for  travelling. 
The  finely  bred  camel  and  many  other  animals  of  the 
escort  might  fail  or  die  en  route,  but  there  were  places 
on  the  way  where  others  could  be  got,  as  well  as  men  to 
replenish  vacancies  made  by  deaths.  Stanton  was  too 
old  an  explorer  not  to  have  calculated  each  step  of  the 
way,  as  far  as  any  white  man's  story  or  black  man's 
rumour  described  it.  And  he  talked  stoically  of  the 
depletion  of  his  ranks.  It  was  only  his  own  failure  or 
death  which  appeared  to  be  for  him  incredible. 

Stanton  rode  all  day  at  the  head  of  the  caravan,  with 
Sanda,  on  her  mehari,  looking  down  at  him,  "like  the 
Blessed  Damozel"  as  he  had  said,  between  her  curtains. 
Max,  on  a  strong  pony  which  Stanton  had  bought  as  an 
"understudy"  for  his  own  horse,  kept  far  in  the  rear. 
The  desert  had  been  beautiful  for  him  yesterday.  It  was 
hideous  to-day.  He  thought  it  must  always  be  hideous 
after  this.  They  saw  the  new  moon  for  the  first  time  that 
afternoon.  Sanda,  lost  in  a  dream  of  happiness,  pointed 
it  out  to  Stanton,  but  he  was  vexed  because  they  caught 


308  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

a  glimpse  of  it  over  the  left  shoulder.  It  was  a  bad  sign, 
he  said,  and  Sanda  laughed  at  him  for  being  superstitious. 
As  if  anything  could  be  a  bad  sign  for  them  on  that  day! 

"Little  White  Moon,"  Ourieda  and  the  other  Arab 
women  had  called  her  at  Djazerta.  Stanton  said  it  was 
just  the  name  for  her,  when  she  told  him.  The  girl  was 
perfectly  happy  now  that  Max  was  rescued.  She  had  no 
regrets,  no  cares;  for,  though  she  dearly  loved  her  father, 
it  would  have  been  long  before  she  saw  him  again  even  if 
she  had  gone  to  Sidi-bel- Abbes;  and  she  knew  he  had 
hated  the  necessity  for  leaving  her  there  without  him. 
She  believed  it  would  be  a  great  relief  to  such  a  keen 
soldier  as  he  was  not  to  be  burdened  with  a  girl.  Often 
she  felt  it  had  been  wrong  and  selfish  of  her  to  run  away 
from  the  aunts  and  throw  herself  upon  his  mercy.  Their 
few  weeks  together,  learning  to  know  and  love  each  other, 
had  been  delicious,  but  the  future  might  have  been  diffi- 
cult if  she  had  stayed. 

Surely  her  father  would  be  glad  to  have  her  married  to 
his  friend,  and,  even  if  there  were  dangers  to  be  feared  in 
the  unknown  desert,  why,  Colonel  DeLisle  was  a  soldier, 
and  she  was  a  soldier's  daughter. 

She  wrote  a  letter  to  her  father  and  gave  it  to  the  priest 
who  had  married  her.  Some  day  it  must  reach  its  des- 
tination, and  there  were  things  in  it  which  would  make 
Colonel  DeLisle  happy.  Sanda  believed  there  would  be 
tender  romance  for  him,  as  for  her,  in  the  thought  of  the 
marriage  near  Touggourt,  where  his  love  had  come  to 
him  from  half  across  the  world. 

Not  a  rap  did  the  girl  care  for  the  hardships  in  front  of 
her.  She  laughed  and  thought  it  a  great  adventure  that 


SANDA'S  WEDDING  NIGHT  .509 

she  had  no  "trousseau,"  but  only  the  few  clothes  which 
were  wearable  after  her  long  visit  to  Djazerta.  And  if 
they  were  never  to  find  the  Lost  Oasis,  or  if  they  them- 
selves were  to  be  lost,  she  would  go  forth  with  the  same 
untroubled  heart. 

The  crescent  moon  had  dropped  behind  the  horizon,  like 
a  bracelet  in  the  sea,  before  they  came  in  sight  of  the  oasis 
where  they  were  to  spend  the  wedding  night;  but  the  sky 
glittered  with  encrusting  stars  that  spread  a  silver  back- 
ground for  the  tall,  dark  palms.  As  the  caravan  de- 
scended into  a  wide  valley  between  dunes,  Max  heard 
Stanton  's  voice  shouting  to  him.  He  rode  forward  to  the 
side  of  the  "  Chief, "  as  the  explorer  was  called  by  his  men. 

"Like  a  good  chap,  gallop  ahead  with  my  fellows  and 
see  that  our  tent  is  set  up  in  the  best  place, "  said  Stanton 
in  his  deep,  pleasant  voice.  "I  should  like  Sanda  to  find 
it  all  ready  when  she  gets  there.  Have  it  put  where  my 
wife  would  think  it  prettiest;  you'll  know  the  right  place; 
place  you'd  choose  yourself  if  it  was  your  honeymoon!" 

There  was  no  conscious  malice  in  the  words,  but  they 
cut  like  a  lash  in  a  raw  wound.  Max  had  the  impulse  to 
strike  his  horse  with  the  whip,  but  he  was  ashamed  of  it 
and  stroked  the  animal's  neck  instead,  as  with  a  word  he 
urged  it  on. 

"I  must  watch  myself  if  this  isn't  to  turn  me  into  a 
beast, "  he  thought.  "  It  shan't,  or  I  '11  be  worse  than  use- 
less to  her.  She  shan't  fall  between  two  brutes. " 

Stanton  had  already  selected  the  men  who  were  to  pitch 
his  bridal  tent,  and  Max  rode  ahead  with  them  and  their 
loaded  camels.  He  chose  a  spot  between  a  miniature 
palm  grove  separated  from  the  main  oasis  and  the  ar- 


310  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

tesian  well,  far  enough  from  the  gushing  water  for  its 
bubbling  to  be  heard  through  canvas  walls  soothingly,  like 
the  music  of  a  fountain. 

Fortunately  for  the  comfort  of  the  unprepared-for 
bride,  Stanton  was  a  man  who  "did  himself  well "  when  he 
could,  though  he  had  always  been  ready  to  face  hardship  if 
necessary.  He  had  not  considered  it  necessary  to  stint 
himself  when  starting  on  this  expedition,  although,  later 
on,  he  would  be  quite  ready  to  throw  luxuries  away  as 
encumbrances.  There  were  cushions  and  thick  rugs 
and  fine  linen  and  soft  blankets.  There  was  also  some 
folding  furniture;  and  one  object  which  revealed  itself 
among  the  rugs  at  first  surprised,  then  unpleasantly  en- 
lightened, Max.  It  was  a  rather  large  mirror  with  a  gilded 
French  frame,  such  as  Arab  women  admire.  For  himself, 
Stanton  would  have  had  a  shaving-glass  a  foot  square, 
and  the  gaudy  ornament  made  Max's  blood  boil.  Stan- 
ton  had  certainly  brought  it  for  a  woman :  Ahmara.  Be- 
fore the  quarrel,  then,  he  had  intended  to  take  her  with 
him !  It  was  only  by  a  chance  that  he  had  gathered  a  fair 
white  lily  instead  of  a  desert  poppy. 

Max  would  have  liked  to  break  the  mirror,  but,  instead, 
he  saw  that  it  was  safely  hung  on  one  of  the  tent-hooks 
and  supported  by  a  brightly  painted  Moorish  chest. 

As  he  stepped  out  of  the  tent  when  all  was  finished  and 
ready  for  the  bride  —  even  to  a  vase  of  orange  blossoms 
brought  by  the  priest  from  Touggourt  —  the  caravan, 
which  had  been  moving  slowly  at  the  last,  had  not  yet 
arrived.  Two  elderly  Arabs  hovered  near,  however,  the 
men  who  lived  in  the  oasis  to  guard  the  well  and  the  date 
palms  in  season.  As  Max  spoke  to  them  in  his  laboured 


SANDA'S  WEDDING  NIGHT  311 

Arabic  he  saw  in  the  distance  the  form  of  a  woman. 
Standing  as  she  did,  in  the  open  ground  with  no  trees  be- 
tween her  and  the  far  silver  horizon,  she  was  a  noble  and 
commanding  figure,  slender  and  tall  like  a  daughter  of 
the  palms.  She  was  for  Max  no  more  than  a  graceful 
silhouette,  majestically  poised,  for  he  could  not  see  her 
face,  or  even  be  sure  that  the  effect  of  crown  and  plumes  on 
her  high-held  head  was  not  a  trick  of  shadow.  Indeed  it 
seemed  probable  that  it  was  a  mere  illusion,  for  crowns 
and  waving  plumes  were  worn  by  desert  dancers,  and  it 
did  not  appear  likely  that  a  wife  or  daughter  of  the  well- 
guardians  should  be  so  adorned. 

As  he  exchanged  elaborate  compliments  with  the  Arabs 
the  woman 's  figure  vanished  and  he  thought  no  more  of  it, 
for  Sanda  and  Stanton  were  arriving.  Max  turned  away 
his  eyes  as  Stanton  took  the  bride  out  of  her  bassourah 
and  half  carried  her  toward  their  tent  without  waiting  to 
thank  the  man  who  had  placed  it.  Max  busied  himself 
feverishly  in  superintending  the  arrangements  of  the 
camp,  which  Stanton  had  asked  him  as  his  "lieutenant" 
to  undertake  that  night. 

The  kneeling  camels  were  tethered  in  long  lines.  No 
zareba  would  be  raised,  for  there  would  be  many  a  long 
march  before  the  caravan  reached  perilous  country.  Here 
a  fire  could  be  built,  for  there  was  no  danger  in  showing 
smoke  and  raising  a  rose-red  glow  against  the  silver. 
The  unveiled  women,  whom  Stanton  had  diplomatically 
allowed  to  accompany  their  husbands,  began  to  cook 
supper  for  the  men;  couscous  and  coffee  and  thin,  ash- 
baked  bread.  It  was  a  long  time  since  Stanton  had  taken 
Sanda  to  the  tent  under  the  little  grove  of  palms,  but 


312  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

he  had  given  no  orders  yet  for  food  to  be  prepared.  Max 
thought  it  unlikely  that  he  should  be  asked  to  eat  with 
them,  but  if  he  were  invited  he  intended  to  refuse.  In 
spite  of  himself,  he  could  not  help  glancing  now  and  then 
toward  the  tent.  The  door-flaps  had  not  been  let  down, 
but  there  was  no  light  inside.  Turning  involuntarily 
that  way,  as  iron  turns  to  a  magnet,  at  last  he  saw  a  man 
and  woman  come  out  of  the  tent.  But  the  woman  was 
not  Sanda ! 

Max  realized  this  with  a  shock.  He  saw  both  figures 
for  an  instant  painted  in  blue-black  against  the  light, 
khaki-coloured  canvas.  The  woman  was  very  tall,  as  tall 
as  Stanton,  and  on  her  head  was  something  high,  like  a 
crown  set  with  plumes.  Stanton  led  her  away,  walking 
quickly.  They  went  toward  the  low,  black  tents  of  the 
guardians  of  the  oasis. 

Max  stood  still  with  a  curious  sensation  of  being  dazed 
after  a  stunning  blow  half  forgotten.  How  long  he  re- 
mained without  moving  he  could  not  have  told.  His 
eyes  had  not  followed  the  two  figures  very  far.  They 
returned  to  the  tent  and  focussed  there  in  anguish. 
Some  scene  there  must  have  been  between  those  three. 
He  was  not  surprised  when,  after  a  short  time  —  or  a  long 
time,  he  did  not  know  which  —  Sanda  appeared.  He 
wondered  if  his  soul  had  called  her,  and  she  was  coming 
in  answer  to  the  call. 

She  hesitated  at  first,  as  if  not  sure  where  to  go.  Then 
catching  sight  of  him  at  a  distance,  with  the  light  of  the 
fire  ruddy  on  his  face,  she  began  to  run.  Almost  in- 
stantly, however,  she  stopped,  paused  for  a  second  or  two, 
and  it  seemed  to  Max  that  she  swrayed  a  little  as  if  she 


SANDA'S  WEDDING  NIGHT  313 

might  fall.  He  started  toward  her  with  great  strides ;  but 
he  had  not  taken  more  than  three  or  four  when  he  saw 
that  she  was  walking  slowly  but  steadily  straight  toward 
him.  He  felt  then,  with  a  mysterious  but  complete 
certainty,  that  she  wished  him  to  go  no  farther,  but  to 
wait.  He  stopped,  and  in  a  moment  she  was  by  his  side. 
She  did  not  speak,  but  stood  with  her  head  drooping. 
Max  could  not  see  her  face.  After  the  first  eagerly 
questioning  glance  he  turned  his  eyes  away.  She  did  not 
wish  him  to  look  at  her  or  break  the  silence.  He  held  his 
tongue,  but  he  was  afraid  she  might  hear  the  pounding  of 
his  heart  and  his  breath  coming  and  going.  If  she  did 
she  would  guess  that  he  knew  something  which,  perhaps, 
she  did  not  mean  to  let  him  know.  At  last,  however,  he 
could  bear  the  strain  no  longer;  besides,  Stanton  might 
come  back.  If  there  were  anything  he  could  do  for  her,  if 
she  wanted  him  to  take  her  away  —  God!  how  his  blood 
sang  at  the  thought  of  it !  —  there  was  no  more  time 
to  waste. 

His  tone  sounded  flat  and  ineffectual  in  his  own  ears  as 
he  spoke.  The  effort  to  keep  it  down  to  calmness  made  it 
almost  absurd,  as  it  would  have  been  to  mention  the 
weather  in  that  tingling  instant.  He  asked  simply :  "Is 
there  something  —  something  I  can  do?" 

"  No, "  she  said.  "  Nothing,  thank  you.  Nothing  any 
one  can  do. " 

The  voice  was  not  like  the  voice  of  Sanda,  which  Max 
had  once  compared  in  his  mind  to  the  ripple  of  a  brook 
steeped  in  sunshine.  It  was  thin  and  weak,  almost  like 
the  voice  of  a  little,  broken  old  woman.  But,  praise 
heaven,  she  was  young,  so  very  young  that  she  would 


314  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

live  this  down,  and,  some  day,  almost  forget.  If  she  would 
let  him  take  her  back  to  Sidi-bel-Abbes  after  all!  This 
marriage  by  a  priest  without  sanction  of  the  law  need  not 
stand.  She  was  not  a  wife  yet,  but  a  girl,  oh!  thank 
God  for  that !  It  was  not  too  late.  If  only  he  could  say 
these  things  to  her.  But  it  seemed  that  he  must  stand 
like  a  block  of  wood  and  wait  for  her  to  point  the  way. 

"Are  you  —  perhaps  you're  homesick?"  he  dared  to 
give  her  a  cue. 

"Homesick?"  Her  voice  broke  and,  instead  of  being 
like  an  old  woman's,  it  was  like  a  little  child's. 
"Yes,  that's  it,  I'm  homesick!  And  —  and  I  think  I'm 
not  very  well.  I  want  my  father,  I  want  him  so  much!" 

The  heart  of  the  man  who  was  not  her  father  yearned 
toward  the  girl. 

"Shall  I  take  you  back?"  he  panted.  "We're  not  far 
past  Touggourt.  To-morrow  it  will  be  too  late,  but  now 
—  now " 

"Now  it's  already  too  late.  Oh,  Soldier!  to  have  yes- 
terday again!" 

He  did  not  ask  her  what  she  meant.  He  did  not  need 
to  ask. 

"It  can  be  yesterday  for  you,"  he  urged. 

"No.  Yesterday  I  was  Sanda  DeLisle.  To-day  I'm 
Sanda  Stanton.  Nothing  can  change  that. " 

"If  you're  unhappy  your  father  can  change  it.  You 
see,  it's  only  the  church  that " 

"Only  the  church!" 

"Forgive  me.     But  the  law  would  say " 

"It  doesn't  matter  to  me  what  the  law  would  say.  It's 
the  thing  what  you  don't  think  matters  that  matters 


SANDA'S  WEDDING  NIGHT  315 

entirely  to  me.  And  even  if  it  were  so  —  even  if  I  were  — 
unhappy  instead  of  only  homesick,  and  somehow  ill,  I 
wouldn't  go  back  if  I  could.  I've  written  to  my  father. 
And  that  priest  from  Touggourt  will  have  told  the 
Amaranthes.  Every  one  knows.  It  would  be  a  dis- 
grace to  " 

"No!    Not  to  you." 

"I  think  it  would.  And  to  Richard.  I  have  taken 
him  by  storm  and  almost  forced  him  to  marry  me.  I 
would  die  and  be  left  alone  in  the  desert  rather  than  dis- 
grace him  in  the  world's  eyes  just  when  he's  starting  out 
on  the  crowning  expedition  of  his  life." 

"Who  put  such  an  idea  into  your  head  that  you'd 
taken  him  by  storm,  that  — 

"  Never  mind.  It  is  in  my  head,  and  it's  true.  I  kno\v 
it.  Soldier,  I'm  glad,  oh,  so  glad,  that  you're  here!  Will 
you  help  me?" 

"You  know  I  will,"  Max  said,  his  heart  bursting.  If 
he  had  needed  payment  for  what  he  had  done,  he  had  it 
in  full  measure.  She  was  glad  he  was  with  her! 

"Well,  I've  told  you  that  I'm  ill.  It's  my  head  —  it 
aches  horribly.  I  hardly  know  what  I'm  doing  or  saying. 
I  can't  be  —  in  that  tent  to-night!" 

"You  shall  have  mine,"  Max  assured  her  quickly. 
"It's  a  good  little  tent,  got  for  the  French  doctor  Stanton 
was  telling  us  about,  who  decided  at  the  last  minute  not 

to  come." 

"Oh,  thank  you  a  thousand  times.     But  you?' 
"  I  shall  rig  up  something  splendid.    They've  got  more 
tents  than  they  know  what  to  do  with.    Several  men  f< 
out  after  Stanton  had  bought  his  supplies." 


316  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

"You  are  good.     Could  I  go  to  your  tent  now?" 

"Of  course.  I'll  take  you  there,  and  fetch  your  lug- 
gage myself.  But  you're  sure  you  won't  go  back  while 
there's  time?'* 

"Sure." 

"If  you're  ill  you  can't  ride  on  with  the  caravan." 

"I  shall  be  better  to-morrow.  God  will  help  me, 
and  you  will  help  me,  too.  I  shall  be  able  to  go  on  for  a 
while.  Maybe  it  need  not  be  for  long.  People  die  in  the 
desert.  I've  always  thought  it  a  beautiful  death.  When 
you  promise  to  marry  a  person  it's  for  better  or  worse. 
And  I've  never  said  I  was  not  happy,  Soldier!  Only  a 
little  homesick  and  tired." 

"Come  with  me  to  my  tent,"  Max  said,  realizing  that 
all  his  persuasions  would  be  in  vain.  "Come  quietly 
now,  and  I'll  explain  to  —  to  Stanton. " 

"  He  knows  I  feel  ill, "  she  answered.  "  I  told  him.  He 
will  understand." 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

THE   ONLY   FRIEND 

WHEN  Stanton  returned  to  his  tent  and  found  it  empty 
he  went  out  quickly  again  and  called  for  St.  George. 

This  was  one  of  the  few  possibilities  of  which  Max  had 
not  thought.  He  had  imagined  Stanton  remaining  sul- 
lenly in  his  tent  as  if  nothing  had  happened,  or  searching 
for  Sand  a  and  ordering,  perhaps  even  forcing,  her  to  go 
back  with  him.  In  that  eventuality,  and  that  only,  Max 
intended  to  interfere.  One  side  of  his  nature,  the  violent 
and  uncontrolled  side,  which  every  real  man  has  in  him, 
wanted  to  "smash"  Stanton;  yearned  for  an  excuse  per- 
haps even  to  kill  him  and  rid  Sanda  forever  of  a  brute, 
no  matter  what  the  consequences  to  himself.  But  the 
side  of  him  where  common  sense  had  taken  refuge 
wished  to  keep  neutral  for  Sanda's  sake,  in  order  to  watch 
over  her  and  protect  her  through  everything.  When  he 
heard  Stanton's  call  he  was  not  far  from  the  tent  he  had 
lent  Sanda.  She,  and  everything  of  hers  which  she  could 
need  for  the  night,  was  already  there,  but  she  had  not 
lighted  the  candle  he  had  given  her.  The  little  khaki- 
coloured  tent  was  an  inconspicuous  object  in  sand  of  the 
same  colour.  Making  an  excuse  of  settling  a  dispute  be- 
tween two  camels  which  disturbed  the  peace,  Max  had 

317 


318  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

kept  near  the  tent,  and  intended,  unobtrusively,  to  play 
sentinel  all  night. 

He  answered  the  "Chief's"  call  on  the  instant,  braced 
for  any  emergency. 

"St.  George,  do  you  know  where  my  wife  is?"  Stanton 
asked. 

"She  told  me  she  felt  ill,  and  that  you  wouldn't  object 
to  my  lending  her  my  tent, "  answered  Max  promptly. 

"I  felt  sure  she'd  go  to  you,"  said  Stanton,  without 
the  signs  of  anger  Max  expected.  Then  still  greater  was 
the  younger  man's  surprise  when  the  elder  laughed.  It 
was  a  slightly  embarrassed  laugh,  but  not  ill-natured. 
"What  else  did  she  tell  you  ?"  Stanton  wanted  to  know. 

"She  told  me  —  nothing  else."  To  save  his  life,  Max 
could  not  resist  that  telltale  emphasis  which  flung  a 
challenge. 

Stanton  laughed  again  and  thrust  his  hands  deep  into 
his  pockets. 

"I  see  you've  drawn  your  own  conclusions.  Fact  is, 
St.  George,  I  'm  in  a  deuce  of  a  damned  scrape,  and  the 
only  bit  of  luck  is  having  a  sensible  chap  of  my  own 
colour,  a  friend  of  both  sides,  a  gentleman  and  a  soldier 
like  you,  to  talk  it  out  with.  You  'd  like  to  help,  wouldn  't 
you,  for  the  father's  sake  if  not  the  daughter's?  " 

"Yes,"  said  Max,  after  a  hair's  breadth  of  hesitation. 
He  was  so  taken  aback  by  Stanton 's  attitude  that  he 
feared  the  other  man  might  be  drawing  him  out  in  some 
subtle  way  detrimental  to  Sanda. 

"I  was  sure  you  would.  Well!  I'm  going  to  tell  you 
the  facts. 

"You're  a  man  of  the  world,  I  expect,  or  you  wouldn't 


THE  ONLY  FRIEND  319 

have  found  your  way  into  the  Legion.  Before  I  had  any 
idea  of  marriage  I  thought  of  carrying  along  a  — 
companion,  only  an  Arab  dancing-girl,  but  I'd  take  my 
oath  there  hasn  't  been  a  more  fascinating  creature  since 
Cleopatra.  A  gorgeous  woman!  No  man  on  earth  — 
not  if  he  were  an  emperor  or  king  —  but  would  lose  his 
head  over  her,  if  she  tried  to  make  him.  No  treachery  to 
Sanda  in  the  plan.  The  child  didn't  enter  into  my  cal- 
culations then.  It  struck  me,  after  I  'd  asked  you  to  see  to 
my  tent,  you  might  spot  something  —  from  that  mirror. " 

"I  did,"  Max  admitted. 

"  Oh,  well»  anyhow,  to  make  a  long  story  short,  the  girl 
flew  into  one  of  those  black  rages  of  the  petted  dancer  men 
have  made  a  damned  fuss  over,  and  she  disappeared. 
Lucky  for  Sanda!  If  Ahmara'd  been  with  me  I'd  have 
had  to  see  Mademoiselle  wend  her  way  to  Touggourt  with 
you.  But  as  it  was,  in  all  good  faith,  I  let  myself  go  — 
one  of  my  impulses  that  carry  me  alosg.  I  attribute 
most  of  my  success  in  life  to  impulses;  inspirations  I 
call  them.  I  honestly  thought  this  was  one,  and  that  it 
would  make  for  my  happiness.  But  by  jove,  St.  George, 
when  I  took  Sanda  into  my  tent  an  hour  ago  if  there 
wasn't  Ahmara  waiting  for  me!" 

He  stopped  an  instant,  as  if  expecting  Max  to  speak, 
but  when  only  dull  silence  answered  he  hurried  on. 

"  She  hadn  't  got  the  news  of  my  marriage.  She  wanted 
to  give  me  a  pleasant  surprise  by  forgiving  me,  and  com- 
ing out  here  secretly,  ahead  of  the  caravan,  to  hide  in  my 
tent.  Her  arms  were  round  my  neck  before  I  knew 
what  was  up  —  and  the  smell  of  'ambre'  that's  always  in 
that  long  hair  of  hers  —  God,  what  hair!  —  was  in  my 


320  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

nose.  Unfortunately  Sanda  had  been  picking  up  Arabic; 
so  she  understood  some  things  Ahmara  blurted  out  before 
I  could  stop  her.  She  got  on  to  the  fact  that  there'd  been 
a  row  —  a  sort  of  lover's  quarrel  —  and  if  it  hadn  't  been 
for  a  misunderstanding,  Ahmara  would  have  started  out 
with  me  in  her  place  —  practically  in  her  place.  No 
need  to  tell  you  more  except  that  Sanda  and  I  had  a  few 
words,  after  she'd  refused  to  see  the  situation  in  the  right 
light.  I  was  sure  she'd  appeal  to  you.  I  am  glad  you 
thought  of  offering  her  your  tent.  I  shall  leave  her  to 
stew  in  her  own  juice  to-night,  and  come  slowly  to  her 
senses.  She's  too  fond  of  me  not  to  do  that  before  long. " 

"When  you've  sent  that  woman  away  to-morrow  — 
Max  began.     But  Stanton  cut  him  short. 

"I  shan't  send  her  away  to-morrow." 

"What?     You " 

"  Sanda  had  the  childish  impudence  to  tell  me  to-night 
that  nothing  could  ever  make  any  difference  between  us 
after  what  had  passed.  Perhaps  it  was  partly  my  fault, 
for  I  lost  my  head  for  a  minute  when  she  accused  me  of 
tricking  her  into  marrying  me,  or  words  to  that  effect. 
I  'm  afraid  I  said  she  had  forced  me  into  it  —  thrown  her- 
self at  me  —  taken  me  unawares  —  something  of  that 
sort.  In  a  way  it's  true.  Heart  caught  in  the  rebound! 
But  I  wouldn  't  have  been  cad  enough  to  throw  it  up  to  her 
if  she  hadn't  said  things  so  silly  that  a  saint  would  have 
been  wild.  The  girl  vows  she  won't  live  with  me  as  my 
wife.  Well,  I  shall  hold  Ahmara  as  a  threat  over  her  head 
till  she  sees  the  error  of  her  ways.  It 's  the  one  thing  to  do, 
as  I  look  at  it.  Besides,  if  I  try  to  pack  Ahmara  back  to 
Touggourt  she'll  screech  like  a  hen  with  her  head  cut  off. 


THE  ONLY  FRIEND  321 

I  won't  be  made  a  laughing  stock  before  my  men,  at  the 
start,  before  I ' ve  shown  them  what  sort  of  a  leader  they've 
got.  Ahmara  comes  from  the  south.  If  Sanda  decides 
to  behave  herself  I'll  drop  the  dancer  at  her  own  place,  en 
route.  Meanwhile,  I  '11  have  time  for  bargaining  over  her 
with  my  wife,  and  Ahmara  can  travel  with  the  other 
women.  Several  men  with  their  wives  have  agreed  to  go 
only  part  of  the  way  and  get  new  fellows  to  join  when 
they  leave.  That 's  the  only  way  to  shed  Ahmara  without 
trouble,  as  she's  landed  herself  on  me.  And  that's  the 
way  I  '11  take  —  as  I  said,  if  Sanda  behaves  herself. " 

"And  if  —  not?  I  suppose  you'll  send  —  Mrs.  Stan- 
ton  back?" 

"Damnation,  I  can't  do  that,  St.  George,  and  you 
know  it.  It  would  mean  a  duel  with  her  father,  and  all 
the  world  would  be  down  on  me  just  at  the  time  I'm 
bidding  highest  for  its  applause.  If  Sanda  travels  with 
me,  whether  she  lives  with  me  or  not,  she'll  keep  her  mouth 
shut.  She's  that  kind  of  girl.  Don't  you,  as  her  friend 
—  or  anyhow,  her  father's  friend  —  know  her  well  enough 
to  understand  that?" 

"  I  may  think  I'd  know  what  she'd  do,"  Max  flung  back 
at  the  other.  "  But  God  knows  what  I'd  do  if  you  insulted 
Mademoiselle  DeLisle  —  Mrs.  Stanton,  I  mean  —by  keep- 
ing that  woman  in  the  caravan.  I  believe  I'd  kill  you ! " 

Stanton   stared.     "Good  Lord!"  he  exclaimed,  in  a 
change  of  mood,  looking  suddenly  like  a  great  helpless 
schoolboy  arraigned,  "I  thought  I  was  talking  to  a  fne 
I  was  asking  your  advice,  and  you  turn  on  me  like  a  tiger. 
See  here,  St.  George,  if  you're  going^to  bite  the  hand 
offer,  you'd  better  be  the  one  to  go." 


322  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

Max  was  staggered.  He  had  made  a  false  move.  He 
could  not  go.  Now,  more  than  ever,  a  thousand  times 
more,  Sanda  needed  a  friend,  and  he  was  the  only  one 
within  reach.  Perhaps  he  could  not  always  help,  but 
he  could  at  least  keep  near.  Only  these  unexpected  con- 
fidences from  Stanton  could  have  made  him  so  lose  grip 
upon  himself;  and  it  must  not  happen  again. 

"I've  just  given  you  my  advice,"  Max  reminded  the 
other  more  quietly. 

"I  can't  take  it." 

"  Then  don't.     We'll  leave  it  at  that. " 

"  I  ask  no  better.     Do  you  want  to  go  or  stay  ?  " 

"I  want  to  stay." 

"Very  well,  then.  I  need  a  man  like  you,  and  I  want 
you  to  stay,  if  you'll  mind  your  own  business." 

"I  will,"  Max  promised  fervently. 

But  as  to  what  his  business  was,  there  might  be  different 
opinions. 

****** 

As  the  long  days  passed  and  the  caravan  toiled  011 
through  dunes  and  alkali  deserts  and  strange,  hidden 
mountainlands,  it  was  hard  to  keep  before  his  eyes  the 
best  way  of  " minding  his  own  business"  —  the  best  way 
for  Sanda.  That  which  was  highest  in  him  prayed  for 
peace  between  her  and  Stanton.  That  which  was  lowest 
wished  for  war.  And  it  wras  war.  Not  loud,  open  war- 
fare, but  a  silent  battle  never  ceasing;  and  the  one  hope 
left  in  Sanda's  heart  for  her  own  future  was  death  in  the 
desert.  She  had  determined  to  go  on,  and  she  would  go  on ; 
but  blinding,  blessed  suns  of  noon  might  strike  her  dead; 
she  might  take  some  malarial  fever  in  the  swampy,  salt- 


THE  ONLY  FRIEND  323 

petre  deserts  through  which  the  caravan  must  travel. 
There  were  also  scorpions  and  vipers.  These  things  she 
had  heard  of  as  among  the  minor  perils  of  Stanton's 
expedition,  and  there  were  many  more  formidable,  of 
course,  such  as  Touaregs  and  Tibbu  brigands.  She 
made  Max  swear  that,  if  they  were  attacked,  and  there 
were  danger  for  the  women,  he  would  shoot  her  with  his 
own  hand.  That  would  not  be  a  bad  solution.  And  there 
were  others.  Her  father  had  said  that  nearly  all  experts 
prophesied  annihilation  for  Stanton  and  his  men. 

Sanda  did  not  "behave  herself."  Nothing  less  than 
force  could  have  dragged  her  to  Stanton's  tent,  and  the 
man  openly  found  consolation  with  Ahmara;  at  first, 
perhaps,  partly  in  defiance,  but,  as  time  went  on,  because 
such  love  as  he  had  to  give  was  for  the  "most  fascinating 
creature  since  Cleopatra."  For  the  men  of  the  caravan 
there  was  nothing  very  startling  in  this  arrangement.  The 
law  of  their  religion  and  country  gave  each  of  them  four 
wives,  if  he  could  afford  to  keep  them.  Ahmara,  darkly 
beautiful  and  bejewelled,  condescended  to  travel  with 
the  other  women  of  her  race,  but  when  the  camp  was  made 
she  moved  about  proudly,  like  an  eastern  queen,  and  went 
wherever  it  was  her  will  to  go.  Sometimes  she  passed 
nearer  than  was  necessary  to  Sanda's  tent,  and  turning 
her  crowned  head  on  its  full  round  throat  let  her  long 
eyes  dwell  on  the  rival  who  ignored  her  existence. 

The  life  she  had  undertaken  would  have  been  impossible 
for  Sanda  without  Max.  If  he  had  not  been  there,  a 
self-appointed  watchdog,  Ahmara  would  certainly  have 
insulted  Stanton's  white  bride,  or  might  even  have  at- 
tempted to  kill  her.  But  Ahmara  was  afraid  of  Max  St. 


324  A  SOLDIER   OF  THE  LEGION 

George.  She  had  caught  a  murderous  glint  in  his  eye 
more  than  once,  and  knew  that  if  she  crossed  a  certain 
dead  line  which  that  look  defined  he  would  not  hesitate 
to  deal  with  her  as  with  a  wildcat. 

As  for  Sanda,  if  she  ever  thought  that  Ahmara  might 
stab  her  some  night  when  Max  was  off  guard,  she  told 
herself  that  she  did  not  care.  She  longed  for  death  as  the 
one  way  out  of  the  cage  into  which  she  had  foolishly 
flown,  and  would  have  prayed  for  it,  if  such  a  prayer  were 
not  to  her  mind  sacrilegious.  She  was  too  young  to 
realize  that  to  wish  is  to  pray.  Sanda  was  always  hoping 
that  something  might  happen  to  put  an  end  to  every- 
thing for  her.  She  disregarded  precautions  which  others 
took  against  sunstroke.  If  there  came  up  a  sandstorm 
she  stole  away  and  faced  it  while  the  rest  sheltered, 
longing  to  be  overwhelmed  and  blotted  out  of  existence. 
But  it  seemed  extraordinarily  difficult  to  die.  And  then, 
there  was  always  Max.  Unfailingly  he  was  on  the  spot  to 
ward  off  danger,  or  to  save  her  from  the  effects  of  what  he 
called  her  "carelessness,"  though  he  must  have  guessec 
the  meaning  underneath  alleged  imprudences. 

San^a  never  confided  in  Max,  yet  she  was  aware  that 
he  could  not  help  knowing  why  she  refused  to  live  with 
Stanton.  She  could  not  bear  to  speak  of  her  humiliation, 
and  Max  would  have  cut  his  tongue  out  rather  than  let 
slip  a  word  concerning  it  after  his  first  vain  appeal. 

As  time  went  on  and  the  caravan  advanced  on  its  march 
across  the  desert,  Stanton  ignored  the  presence  of  Sanda 
as  she  ignored  Ahmara's.  She  ate  and  slept  in  her  own 
tent,  which  had  been  Max's.  He  it  was  who  saw  that 
she  had  good  food  and  filtered  water.  Wherever  fruit 


THE  ONLY  FRIEND  325 

could  be  got,  by  fair  means  or  foul,  there  was  some  for 
her,  whether  others  had  it  or  not.  Max  made  coffee  and 
tea  for  Sanda.  He  tended  the  camel  she  rode  in  order 
that  it  might  be  strong  and  in  good  health.  When  the 
caravan  came  into  the  country  of  the  Touaregs  he  rode 
near  her  day  by  day,  and  at  night  lay  as  close  to  her  tent 
as  he  dared.  Sometimes  he  noticed  that  Stanton  eyed 
him  cynically  when  he  performed  unostentatious  services 
for  Sanda,  but  outwardly  the  only  two  white  men  were 
on  civil  terms.  Stanton  even  seemed  glad  of  Max's  com- 
panionship, and  discussed  routes  and  prospects  with 
him,  asking  his  advice  sometimes;  and  once,  when  the 
explorer  was  attacked  by  a  Soudanese  maddened  by  the 
sun  and  Stanton's  brutality,  Max  struck  up  the  black 
man's  weapon;  almost  before  he  knew  what  he  was  doing 
he  had  saved  the  life  of  Sanda's  husband. 

"  Why  did  I  do  it? "  he  asked  himself  afterward.  Yet 
he  knew  some  strange  "kink"  in  his  nature  would  compel 
him  to  do  the  same  thing  again  under  like  circumstances. 

Stanton,  at  his  best,  was  an  ideal  leader  of  men. 
Many  a  forlorn  hope  he  had  led  and  brought  to  success 
through  sheer  self-confidence  and  belief  in  his  star.  But 
whether  the  failure  of  his  mad  marriage  had  disturbed 
his  faith  in  his  own  persistent  luck,  or  whether  Ahmara  's 
influence  made  for  degeneration,  in  any  case,  a  blight 
seemed  to  have  fallen  on  the  once  great  man's  mentality. 
It  had  been  a  boast  of  his  that,  though  he  drank  freely 
when  "resting  on  his  laurels"  in  Europe,  he  was  strong 
enough  to  "swear  off"  at  any  moment.  He  had  accus- 
tomed himself  to  taking  tea  and  water  only  in  blazing 
African  heat;  and  since  the  serious  illness  that  followed 


326  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

his  sunstroke  he  had  been  forbidden  to  touch  alcohol  any- 
where, in  any  circumstances.  For  a  time  he  had  been 
frightened  into  obedience  to  doctors'  orders;  but  grad- 
ually he  had  drifted  back  into  old  habits;  and  after  his 
quarrel  with  Ahmara  at  Touggourt  he  found  oblivion  in 
much  Scotch  whisky,  his  favourite  drink. 

Perhaps  if  all  had  gone  well  with  Stanton,  if  Ahmara  had 
not  come  again  into  his  life  and  lost  him  Sanda's  child- 
like worship,  he  might  have  pulled  himself  together  after 
the  starting  of  the  caravan.  But,  as  it  was,  there  were 
black  thoughts  to  be  chased  away,  and  the  simplest 
receipt  for  replacing  them  with  bright  ones  was  to  fill  his 
head  with  fumes  of  whisky. 

When  Sanda,  riding  behind  her  curtains,  or  shrinking 
in  her  tent,  heard  Stanton  cursing  the  negro  porters, 
and  roaring  profane  abuse  at  the  camels  and  camel- 
drivers,  she  did  not  know  that  he  was  drunk;  but  the 
men  knew,  and,  being  sober  by  religion,  ceased  to  re- 
spect him.  Among  themselves,  they  began  to  question 
the  wisdom  of  his  orders,  and  suspect  him  of  treachery 
toward  themselves.  Losing  faith  in  the  leader,  they  lost 
faith  in  the  wonderful  hidden  oasis  he  sought,  the 
oasis  peopled  by  rich  Egyptians  who  had  vanished  into 
the  desert  to  escape  persecution  after  the  Sixth  Dynasty. 
Arabs  and  negroes  said  it  must  be  true  after  all  that  the 
"Chief"  was  mad,  and  they  had  been  mad  to  trust  them- 
selves to  him,  or  to  believe  in  the  mysterious  city  lost 
beyond  unexplored  mountains  and  shifting  dunes  which 
were  but  shrouds  for  dead  men.  He  was  either  deliber- 
ately leading  them  all  to  death,  for  the  insane  pleasure  of  it, 
or  else  he  had  some  plan  for  making  his  own  fortune  by  sell- 


THE  ONLY  FRIEND  327 

ing  his  escort  as  slaves.  Men  began  to  desert  whenever 
they  came  to  an  attractive  stopping-place  where  there  was 
food  and  water.  They  feigned  illness,  or  fled  in  the  night 
with  their  camels  into  the  vastness  of  the  desert,  their 
faces  turned  once  more  to  the  west.  For  soon,  if  they 
stayed,  they  would  pass  beyond  the  zone  of  known  oases, 
into  the  terrible  land  of  mystery,  charted  by  no  man,  a 
land  where  it  was  said  the  sun  had  dried  up  all  the  springs 
of  water.  So  the  caravan  dwindled  as  slowly,  painfully  it 
moved  toward  the  east;  and  even  while  he  hated  him, 
Max  was  sometimes  moved  to  pity  for  the  harassed  leader. 
Stanton  grew  haggard  as  the  desert  closed  in  round  him 
and  his  disaffected  followers;  but  there  were  days  when, 
instead  of  sympathizing  reluctantly,  Max  cursed  the  ex- 
plorer for  a  brute,  and  cursed  himself  for  saving  the  brute's 
life.  There  were  days  when  Stanton  shot  or  whipped  a 
Soudanese  for  an  impudent  word,  or  ordered  a  forced 
march  because  Sanda  had  sent  to  beg  respite  for  some 
wretch  struck  down  with  fever  whom  she  was  nursing. 

As  the  men  lost  faith  in  Stanton  and  his  vision  of  the 
Lost  Oasis  they  attached  themselves  fanatically  to  the 
wife  of  their  Chief,  the  "  Little  White  Moon, "  who  seldom 
spoke  to  her  husband  save  to  defend  one  of  their  number 
from  his  fits  of  anger,  and  who,  with  her  golden  hair  and 
her  skin  of  snow  that  the  fierce  sun  could  not  darken,  was 
like  the  shining  angel  who  walks  at  the  right  hand  of  a 
good  Mohammedan.  They  saw  no  wrong  in  Ahmara's 
presence;  but  she  was  haughty  and  high-tempered,  and 
took  part  against  them  with  Stanton.  The  whisper  ran 
that  the  dancing-woman  had  brought  bad  luck  to  the  ex- 
pedition for  so  long  as  she  was  with  the  caravan;  whereas, 


328  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

if  fortune  were  to  come,  it  would  come  through  the 
white  girl  who  nursed  the  sick  and  had  a  smile  or  a  kind 
word  for  the  humblest  porter.  This  whisper  reached 
Ahmara 's  ears  through  the  wives  of  the  camel-drivers, 
and  at  first  she  was  anxious  to  keep  it  from  Stanton  lest  it 
should  prejudice  him  and  put  into  his  head  the  idea  of 
leaving  her  at  one  of  the  far  apart  oasis  towns  where  the 
caravan  took  supplies.  But  the  more  she  turned  over 
the  thought  in  her  unenlightened  mind,  the  more  impos- 
sible it  seemed  to  her  that  Stanton  would  give  her  up.  Be- 
sides, he  was  very  brave,  even  braver  than  the  great 
chiefs  of  her  own  race,  for  they  feared  unseen  things  and 
omens,  whereas  he  laughed  at  their  superstition.  She  used 
every  art  of  the  professional  charmer  upon  Stanton  for 
the  next  few  days,  while  she  asked  herself  whether  to  tell 
what  she  had  learnt,  or  not  to  tell,  were  wiser. 

When  she  was  convinced  that  she  had  made  herself 
more  indispensable  than  ever,  Ahmara  put  the  story  into 
the  form  that  seemed  to  her  very  good.  She  said  that 
nothing  which  passed  in  the  caravan  could  escape  her, 
because  the  life  of  the  leader  was  her  life.  She  wished  to 
be  for  him  like  a  lighted  candle  set  at  the  door  of  his  tent, 
the  flame  her  spirit,  which  felt  each  breath  of  evil  threat- 
ening his  safety.  The  men  who  hated  the  Chief  for  his  power 
or  because  he  had  punished  them  hated  her  also  because 
she  was  true  to  him  as  the  blood  that  beat  in  his  heart. 

"Those  who  are  cowards  and  find  the  greatness  of  thy 
adventures  too  great  for  them,  now  they  have  tasted  hard- 
ship, mutter  in  secret  against  thee,"  Ahmara  said.  "There 
are  some  who  mean  to  band  together  and  refuse  to  follow 
thee  past  the  last-known  oasis  which  is  marked  on  thy 


THE  ONLY  FRIEND  329 

maps.  They  say, that  from  what  they  have  heard,  thou  art 
indeed  mad  to  think  that  a  caravan  can  live  in  unknown 
deserts  where  there  is  no  water.  Once  they  believed  in 
thee  so  firmly  if  thou  hadst  told  them  thou  couldst  cause 
water  to  spout  from  dry  sand  they  would  have  taken  thy 
word  for  truth.  But  now  the  white  girl,  who  is  too  proud 
to  be  thy  wife  because  thy  faithful  one  followed  thee  into 
the  desert,  has  bewitched  the  men.  They  think  she  is 
a  marabouta,  a  saint  endowed  with  magic  power,  and  that 
her  spirit  is  stronger  than  thine.  They  will  offer  them- 
selves to  her  man,  when  we  come  to  the  place  where  the 
known  way  ends,  if  he  will  promise  to  lead  them  straight 
to  Egypt,  without  wandering  across  the  open  desert  to 
seek  thy  Lost  Oasis." 

"Her  man!"  echoed  Stanton,  the  blood  suffusing  his 
already  bloodshot  eyes  as  in  an  instant  it  reddens  those 
of  an  angry  St.  Bernard.  "What  do  you  mean?" 

"Thou  knowest  without  my  telling,  my  Chief.  The 
man  whose  idol  she  is.  There  is  but  one  man  —  the  man 
who  watches  over  her  by  day  and  night,  and  makes  himself 
her  slave." 

"You're  a  fool,  Ahmara,"  Stanton  said  roughly. 
"Don't  you  suppose  I've  got  sense  enough  to  see  why  you 
want  to  put  such  ideas  into  my  head?  You're  jealous  of 
my  wife.  St.  George  and  she  are  nothing  to  each  other. 
As  for  the  men,  like  as  not  they  growl  in  your  hearing  be- 
cause they  hope  you'll  repeat  their  nonsense  to  me  and 
give  me  a  fright.  That's  all  there  is  in  it." 

"I  know  thou  art  a  lion  and  fearest  nothing,"  Ahmara 
meekly  answered.  But  next  day  she  saw  that  Stanton 
watched  Max. 


330  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

On  the  following  night  they  came  to  the  oasis  of  which 
she  had  spoken.  It  was  called  Darda'i,  and  lay  between 
two  danger-zones.  The  first  of  these  —  danger  from  man 
—  was  practically  passed  at  Dardai,  Stanton  calculated, 
and  knew  that  he  had  been  lucky  to  bring  his  caravan 
through  the  land  of  the  Touaregs  (which  he  had  risked 
rather  than  face  almost  certain  death  along  the  shorter, 
more  northern  way  of  Tripolitania)  with  only  a  few  thefts 
from  marauders  and  no  loss  of  life  by  violence.  Perhaps 
the  formidable  size  of  the  caravan  and  the  arms  it  carried 
had  been  its  protection,  rather  than  the  repute  of  its 
leader;  but  Stanton  took  the  credit  to  himself.  He  told 
himself  that,  after  all,  he  had  triumphed  over  difficulties 
as  no  other  man  in  his  place  could  have  done.  It  was 
monstrous  and  incredible  that  the  spirit  of  the  caravan 
should  have  turned  against  him.  He  said  this  over  and 
over,  but  in  his  heart  he  knew  that  he  had  lost  prestige 
through  faults  in  his  own  nature,  and  because  of  mistakes 
he  had  made  ever  since  the  bad  beginning.  He  knew 
that,  although  he  had  brought  his  followers  through  the 
first  danger-zone  without  too  many  accidents,  the  second 
zone,  the  uncharted  zone  of  Libyan  desert  which 
stretched  before  them  now,  had  ten  times  more  of  danger 
in  it  than  the  zone  of  danger  from  men.  Whisky  could 
not  chase  away  his  gloom  that  night  when  he  had  come  to 
camp  from  the  house  of  the  sheikh  who  had  entertained 
him  at  dinner  in  the  village,  and  to  whom  he  had  given 
valuable  presents  in  exchange  for  help  expected.  But  if 
the  liquor  could  not  cheer  him,  it  made  him  conscious  of 
his  own  bulldog  tenacity. 

"I'll  show  the  ungrateful  devils  who  is  master,"  he 


THE  ONLY  FRIEND  331 

thought  as  he  looked  out  from  his  tent  door  to  the  glow  of 
the  fire  round  which  his  men  had  been  watching  some 
naked  male  dancers  of  Dardai.  The  dancers  had  gone, 
but  the  watchers  had  not  yet  moved.  They  were  talking 
together  more  quietly  than  usual,  in  groups.  Stanton 
wondered  what  they  were  saying;  and  he  stared,  frowning, 
over  their  heads  toward  the  east,  where  lay  the  Libyan 
desert.  They  were  practically  out  of  the  Sahara  now. 

As  he  gazed,  Ahmara  came  flitting  across  a  moonlit 
space  of  sand  that  lay  like  a  silver  lake  between  the 
tent  and  the  rest  of  the  camp. 

"Thou  art  back,  0  master  of  my  heart,  from  thy  visit 
to  the  sheikh, "  she  said.  "  Did  it  pass  off  well  ? " 

"Well  enough,"  Stanton  answered  mechanically.  For 
the  moment  he  was  indifferent  to  Ahmara,  though  her 
strange  face  was  tragically  beautiful.  In  the  pale  light 
the  figure  of  Max  St.  George  became  suddenly  visible  to 
him.  It  moved  out  from  behind  the  tents  and  walked 
over  to  the  fire.  Stanton,  on  a  quick  impulse,  called  out 
to  Max  harshly: 

"  Come  here,  St.  George !    I  want  you ;  hurry  up ! " 

Ahmara  slipped  behind  Stanton,  who  took  a  step  for- 
ward, and,  as  he  forgot  her,  she  darted  into  his  tent. 


CHAPTER    XXVIII 

SANDA   SPEAKS 

IT  WAS  Max's  policy,  for  Sanda's  sake,  never  to  give 
Stanton  a  pretext  to  send  him  away.  He  kept  his  temper 
under  provocations  almost  intolerable;  and  now  he  obeyed 
the  truculent  summons. 

"What  do  you  want?"  he  asked  stiffly  when  he  had 
come  near  enough  to  speak  in  an  ordinary  tone. 

"I'll  tell  you  inside  my  tent,"  the  explorer  answered, 
stalking  in  first  and  leaving  his  guest  to  follow.  Stanton 
was  somewhat  surprised  to  see  Ahmara  sitting  on  her  feet, 
her  ringed  hands  on  her  knees,  her  crowned  head  thrown 
back  against  the  canvas  wall;  but  on  the  whole,  he  was 
not  sorry  that  she  was  there.  She  might  be  useful.  He 
only  smiled  sarcastically  when,  at  sight  of  her,  Max 
stopped  on  the  threshold. 

"Don't  be  afraid  to  come  in,"  Stanton  laughed;  "the 
lady  won't  mind." 

"But  /  do,"  Max  returned,  with  the  curt  politeness  of 
tone  which  irritated  Stanton.  "I'll  stand  here  if  you 
please." 

"  All  right.  My  orders  won 't  take  long  to  give.  I  want 
you  to  go  to  your  friend's  tent  with  a  message  from  me. " 

"My  friend's  tent?"  Max's  eyes  sent  out  a  spark  in 
the  dull  yellow  light. 

332 


SANDA  SPEAKS  333 

"My  wife's  tent,  then,  if  you  think  the  name's  more 
appropriate.  I  believe  she's  likely  to  favour  you  as  a 
messenger,  and  she  hasn  't  gone  to  bed,  for  her  tent 's  lit  up. 
Tell  her  from  me,  I  find  it  subversive  of  discipline  in  this 
caravan  for  a  woman  to  set  her  will  up  against  the 
leader  and  live  apart  from  her  husband.  Entirely  for 
that  reason  and  not  because  I  want  anything  to  do  with 
her,  after  the  way  I've  been  treated,  I've  made  up  my 
mind  that  she  and  I  must  live  together  like  other  married 
people.  I  wish  the  change  to  be  made  with  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  whole  caravan.  Go  and  tell  her  to  come  here; 
and  then  give  my  orders  to  Mahmoud  and  Zaid  to  bring 
anything  over  she  may  need." 

If  eyes  could  kill,  Stanton  would  have  dropped  like  a 
felled  ox.  But  Max  would  not  give  him  the  satisfaction  of 
a  blow  or  even  of  a  word.  With  a  look  of  disgust  such  as 
he  might  have  thrown  at  a  wallowing  drunkard  in  a  gutter, 
St.  George  turned  his  back  on  the  explorer  and  walked 
away.  Before  he  could  escape  out  of  earshot,  however, 
the  Chief  was  bawling  instructions  to  Ahmara. 

"Since  that  fellow  is  above  taking  a  message,  go  you, 
and  deliver  it,"  roared  Stanton,  repeating  in  Arabic  the 
orders  flung  at  Max.  "Her  ladyship  knows  enough  of 
your  language  to  understand.  Say  to  her,  if  she  isn't  at 
my  tent  door  in  ten  minutes  I'll  fetch  her.  She  won't 
like  that." 

Max  had  not  meant  to  go  near  Sanda,  but  fearing  in- 
sult for  her  from  the  Arab  woman,  he  changed  his  mind, 
and  put  himself  between  Ahmara  and  Sanda 's  tent.  As 
the  tall  figure  in  its  full  white  robes  came  floating  toward 
him  in  the  moonlight,  he  blocked  the  way.  But  the  dancer 


334  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

did  not  try  to  pass.  She  paused  and  whispered  sharply: 
"  Thinkest  thou  I  want  the  girl  to  go  to  him  ?  No,  I  'd  kill 
her  sooner.  But  he  is  watching.  Let  me  only  tell  her  to 
beware  of  him.  If  she  is  out  of  her  tent  when  he  searches, 
what  can  he  do?  And  by  to-morrow  night  I  shall  have 
had  time  to  make  him  change  his  mind." 

"You  shan't  speak  to  Mrs.  Stanton  if  I  can  help  it," 
said  Max.  "  Besides,  I  won 't  trust  you  near  her.  You're 
a  she-devil  and  capable  of  anything." 

"  Speak  to  her  at  the  door  thyself,  if  thou  art  afraid  my 
breath  will  wither  thy  frail  flower,"  Ahmara  sneered. 
"Tell  her  to  escape  quickly  into  the  shadows  of  the  oasis, 
for  the  master  will  not  care  to  lose  his  dignity  in  hunting 
her.  As  for  thee,  thou  canst  run  to  guard  her  from  harm, 
as  thou  hast  done  before  when  she  wandered,  and  I  will 
carry  word  to  the  Chief  that  the  White  Moon  refuses  to 
shine  for  him.  In  ten  minutes  he  will  set  out  to  fetch  her, 
according  to  his  word;  but  when  he  finds  her  tent  empty 
he  will  return  to  his  own  with  Ahmara,  I  promise  thee,  to 
plan  some  way  of  punishment.  Shelter  thy  flower  from 
that  also  if  thou  canst,  for  it  may  not  be  to  my  interest 
to  counsel  thee  then,  as  it  is  now." 

Max  turned  from  the  dancer  without  replying,  and  she 
hovered  near  while  he  spoke  at  the  door  of  Sanda  's  tent, 
within  which  the  light  had  now  gone  out. 

"  Mrs.  Stanton !"  he  called  in  a  low  voice.  " Mrs.  Stan- 
ton!" 

Sanda  did  not  answer;  and  he  called  for  the  third  time, 
raising  his  voice  slightly,  yet  not  enough  for  Stanton  to 
hear  at  his  distance. 

Still  all  was  silence  inside  the  tent,  though  it  was  not 


SANDA  SPEAKS  SS5 

five  minutes  since  the  light  had  been  extinguished,  and 
Sanda  could  hardly  have  fallen  asleep.  Could  she  have 
heard  what  he  and  Ahmara  were  saying?  He  wondered. 
It  was  just  possible,  for  he  had  stepped  close  to  the  tent 
in  barring  the  dancer  away  from  it.  If  Sanda  had  heard 
hurrying  footsteps  and  voices  she  might  have  peeped 
through  the  canvas  flaps;  and  having  made  an  aperture, 
it  would  have  been  easy  to  catch  a  few  words  of  Ahmara 's 
excited  whispers. 

"Perhaps  she  took  the  hint  and  has  gone,"  Max 
thought;  and  an  instant  later  assured  himself  that  she  had 
done  so,  for  the  pegs  at  the  back  of  the  tent  had  been 
pulled  out  of  the  sand.  The  bird  had  flown,  but  Max 
feared  that  it  might  only  be  from  one  danger  to  another. 
In  spite  of  the  friendly  reception  given  to  the  caravan  at 
Dardai,  a  young  woman  straying  from  camp  into  the  oasis 
would  not  be  safe  for  an  instant  if  seen;  and  in  the  desert 
beyond  Sanda  might  be  terrified  by  jackals  or  hyenas. 
Bending  down  Max  saw,  among  the  larger  tracks  made  by 
himself  and  the  men  who  had  helped  him  pitch  the  tent, 
small  footprints  in  the  sand:  marks  of  little  shoes 
which  could  have  been  worn  by  nobody  but  Sanda.  The 
toes  had  pressed  in  deeply,  while  the  heelprints  were  in- 
visible after  the  first  three  or  four.  As  soon  as  she  was 
out  of  the  tent,  Sanda  had  started  to  run.  She  had  gone 
away  from  the  direction  of  the  dying  fire,  in  front  of 
which  the  men  of  the  caravan  still  squatted,  and  had  taken 
the  track  that  led  toward  the  oasis.  There  was  a  narrow 
strip  of  desert  to  be  crossed,  and  then  a  sudden  descent 
over  rocks,  down  to  an  oued  or  river-bed,  which  gave 
water  to  the  mud  village  high  up  on  the  other  side.  This 


336  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

was  the  way  the  oasis  dwellers  had  taken  after  a  visit  of 
curiosity  to  the  camp ;  and  as  the  night  was  bright  and  not 
cold,  some  might  still  be  lingering  in  the  oued,  bathing 
their  feet  in  the  little  stream  of  running  water  among  the 
smooth,  round  stones.  Max  followed  the  footprints,  but 
lost  them  on  the  rocks,  and  would  have  passed  Sanda  if 
a  voice  had  not  called  him  softly. 

The  girl  had  found  a  seat  for  herself  in  deep  shadow  on  a 
small  plateau  between  two  jutting  masses  of  sandstone. 

"I  saw  you,"  she  said  as  he  stopped.  "1  wondered  if 
you  would  come  and  look  for  me." 

"Weren't  you  sure?"  he  asked.  "When  I  found  the 
tent-pegs  up,  I  knew  you'd  gone;  and  I  followed  the  foot- 
prints, because  it's  not  safe  for  you  to  be  out  in  the 
night  alone." 

"Safer  than  in  my  tent,  if  he "  she  began  breath- 
lessly, then  checked  herself  in  haste.  She  was  silent  for  a 
minute,  looking  up  at  Max,  who  had  come  to  a  stand  on  the 
edge  of  her  little  platform.  Then,  for  the  first  time  since 
she  had  begged  him  to  join  the  caravan  instead  of  going 
back  to  Bel-Abbes,  she  broke  down  and  cried  bitterly. 

"What  am  I  to  do,  Soldier?"  she  sobbed.  "You 
know  —  I  never  told  you  anything,  but  —  you  know  how 
it  is  with  me?" 

"I  know,"  said  Max. 

"I've  been  always  hoping  I  should  die  somehow,  and 
—  and  that  would  make  an  end,"  the  girl  wept.  "Other 
people  have  died  since  we  have  started :  three  strong  men 
and  a  woman,  one  from  a  viper's  bite  and  the  others  with 
fever.  But  I  can't  die!  Soldier,  you  never  let  me  die!" 

"I  don't  mean  to!"  Max  tried  to  force  a  ring  of  cheer- 


SANDA  SPEAKS  337 

fulness  into  his  voice,  though  black  despair  filled  his  heart. 
"You've  got  to  live  for  —  your  father." 

"  I  hope  I  shall  never  see  him  again!"  she  cried  sharply. 
"He'd  know  the  instant  he  looked  into  my  eyes  that  I 
was  unhappy.  I  couldn't  bear  it.  Oh,  Soldier,  if  only  I 
had  let  you  take  me  back  when  you  begged  to,  even  as 
late  as  that  morning  —  before  Father  Dupre  came  out 
from  Touggourt.  But  it  makes  things  worse  to  think  of 
that  now  —  of  what  might  have  been!" 

"Let's  think  of  what  will  be,  when  we  get  through  to 
Egypt,"  Max  encouraged  her. 

"I  don't  want  to  get  through.  The  rest  of  you,  yes, 
but  not  I !  Soldier,  what  am  I  to  do  if  he  tries  to  make  — 
if  he  won't  let  me  go  on  living  alone?" 

"He  shall  let  you,"  said  Max  between  his  teeth. 

"You  mean  that  you  —  but  that  would  be  the  worst 
thing  of  all,  if  you  quarrelled  with  him  about  me.  You  've 
been  so  wonderful.  Don't  you  think  I've  seen?" 

Max's  heart  leaped.  What  had  she  seen?  His  love, 
or  only  the  acts  it  prompted? 

"  Don 't  be  afraid,  that 's  all,"  he  said.  His  voice  shook 
a  little.  As  her  face  leaned  out  of  the  shadow  looking  up 
to  him,  lily-pale  under  the  moon,  he  feared  her  sweet- 
ness in  the  night,  feared  that  it  might  break  down  such 
strength  as  he  had  and  make  him  betray  his  secret.  How 
he  would  hate  himself  afterward,  if  in  a  mad  moment  he 
blurted  out  his  love  for  this  poor  child  who  so  needed  a 
faithful  friend!  In  terror  of  himself  he  hurried  on. 
"Better  let  me  take  you  back  now,"  he  suggested  almost 
harshly.  "  You  can 't  stay  here  all  night. " 

"Why  can't  I?" 


338  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

"Because  —  it's  best  not.  I'll  walk  with  you  as  far 
as  the  camels,  and  then  drop  behind  —  not  too  far  off  to  be 
at  hand  if  —  anything  disturbs  you.  Did  you  hear  all 
that  woman  said  to  me?" 

"About  his  looking  into  my  tent  and  then  going  back 
to  his  own  —  that  she 'd  promise  he  should  go  back?  Yes, 
I  listened  before  I  ran  away.  Those  were  the  last  words 
I  waited  for." 

Max  was  glad  she  had  not  overheard  the  threat  of 
future  punishment. 

"Well,  then,  your  tent  will  be  safe." 

"  Safe?  "  she  echoed.  " Safe  from  him  —  from  my  hero! 
What  fools  girls  can  be !  But  perhaps  there  was  never  one 
so  foolish  as  I.  It  seems  aeons  since  I  was  that  person  — 
that  happy,  silly  person.  Well !  It  doesn  't  bear  thinking 
of,  much  less  talking  about;  and  I  never  did  talk  before, 
did  I?  We'll  go  back,  since  you  say  we  must.  But  not 
to  my  tent.  I'd  rather  sit  by  the  fire  all  night,  if  the  men 
have  gone  when  we  get  there.  After  dawn  I  can  rest,  as 
we're  not  to  travel  to-morrow." 

She  held  out  both  hands  to  be  helped  up  from  her  low 
seat,  and  Max  fought  down  the  impulse  to  crush  the  slen- 
der white  creature  against  his  breast.  Slowly  they  walked 
back  over  the  rocks  and  through  the  moon-white  sand, 
until  they  could  see  not  only  the  glow  of  the  fire,  but  the 
smouldering  remnants  of  palm-trunks.  Dark,  squatting 
figures  were  still  silhouetted  against  the  ruddy  light, 
and  Sanda  paused  to  consider  what  she  should  do.  She 
stopped  Max  also,  with  a  hand  on  his  arm. 

"It's  a  wonderful  picture,  or  would  be  if  one  were 
happy!"  she  muttered;  and  then  Max  could  feel  some 


SANDA  SPEAKS  339 

sudden  new  emotion  thrill  through  her  body.  She  started, 
or  shivered,  and  the  fingers  lying  lightly  on  his  coat- 
sleeve  tightened. 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked,  but  got  no  answer.  The  girl 
was  standing  with  slightly  lifted  face,  her  eyes  closed,  as  if 
behind  the  shut  lids  she  saw  some  vision. 

"Sanda!"  he  breathed.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had 
called  her  by  that  name,  though  always  in  his  thoughts 
she  was  Sanda.  "You're  frightening  me!" 

"Hush!"  she  said.  "I'm  remembering  a  dream;  you 
and  I  in  the  desert  together,  and  you  saving  me  from  some 
danger,  I  never  found  out  what,  because  I  woke  up  too 
soon.  Just  now  it  was  as  if  a  voice  told  me  this  was  the 
place  of  the  dream. " 

What  caused  Max  to  tear  his  eyes  from  the  rapt,  white 
face  of  the  girl  at  that  instant,  and  look  at  the  sand,  he  did 
not  know.  But  he  seemed  compelled  to  look.  Some- 
thing moved,  close  to  Sanda 's  feet;  something  thin  and 
long  and  very  flat,  like  a  piece  of  rope  pulled  quickly  to- 
ward her  by  an  unseen  hand.  Max  did  not  stop  to  wonder 
what  it  was.  He  swooped  on  it  and  seized  the  viper's 
neck  between  his  thumb  and  finger  and  snapped  its  spine 
before  it  had  time  to  strike  Sanda 's  ankle  with  its  poisoned 
fang.  But  not  before  it  had  time  to  strike  him. 

"Thekeen  pin-prick  caught  him  in  the  ball  of  the  thumb. 
It  did  not  hurt  much,  but  Max  knew  it  meant  death  if  the 
poison  found  a  vein;  and  he  did  not  want  to  die  , 
leave  Sanda  alone  with  Stanton.    Flinging  the  dead  vipei 
off,  he  whipped  the  knife  in  his  belt  from  its  sheath,  an, 
with  its  sharp  blade  slit  through  the  skin  deep  infc 
flesh.     A  slight  giddiness  mounted  like  the  fumes  from  a 


340  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

stale  wine-vat  to  his  head  as  he  cut  down  to  the  bone  and 
hacked  off  a  bleeding  slice  of  his  right  hand,  then  cau- 
terized the  wound  with  the  flame  of  a  match;  but  he  was 
hardly  conscious  of  the  pain  in  the  desperate  desire  to 
save  a  life  necessary  to  Sanda.  It  was  of  her  he  thought 
then,  not  of  himself  at  all  as  an  entity  wishing  to  live  for  its 
own  pleasure  or  profit;  and  he  was  dimly  conscious,  as  the 
blood  spurted  from  his  hand,  of  hoping  that  Sanda  did 
not  see.  He  would  have  told  her  not  to  look,  but  the  need 
to  act  was  too  pressing  to  give  time  for  words.  Neither 
he  nor  she  had  uttered  a  sound  since  his  dash  for  the  viper 
had  shaken  her  clinging  fingers  from  his  arm;  and  it 
was  only  when  the  poisoned  flesh  and  the  burnt  match 
had  been  flung  after  the  dead  snake  that  Max  could 
glance  at  the  girl. 

When  he  did  turn  his  eyes  to  her,  it  was  with  scared 
apology.  He  was  afraid  he  had  made  her  faint  if  she  had 
seen  that  sight;  luckily,  though,  blood  wasn't  quite  so  hor- 
rid by  moonlight  as  by  day. 

"I'm  sorry!"  he  stammered.  But  the  words  died  on 
his  lips.  She  was  looking  straight  at  him  with  a  wonder- 
ful, transfiguring  look.  Many  fleeting  expressions  he  had 
seen  on  that  face  of  his  adoration,  but  never  anything  like 
this.  He  did  not  dare  to  think  he  could  read  it,  and 
yet  —  yet 

"Have  you  given  your  life  for  me  this  time? "  she  asked, 
in  a  strange,  deadly  quiet  tone. 

"No,  no.  I  shall  be  all  right  now  I've  got  rid  of  the 
poison,"  he  answered.  "I'll  bind  my  hand  up  with  this 
handkerchief " 

"I'll  bind  it,"  she  cut  him  short;  and  taking  the  hand- 


SANDA  SPEAKS  341 

kerchief  from  him  she  tore  it  quickly  into  strips.  Then 
with  practised  skill  she  bandaged  the  wound.  "That  must 
do  till  we  get  to  my  tent,"  she  told  him.  "There  I've 
lint  and  real  bandages  that  I  use  for  the  men  when 
they  hurt  themselves,  and  I'll  sponge  your  hand  with 
disinfectant.  But,  my  Soldier,  my  poor  Soldier,  how  can 
I  bear  it  if  you  leave  me?  You  won't,  will  you?" 

"Not  if  I  can  possibly  help  it,"  said  Max. 

"How  soon  can  we  be  sure  that  you've  cut  all  the  poi- 
son out?" 

"In  a  few  minutes,  I  think." 

"And  if  you  haven't,  it's  —  death?" 

"I  can't  let  myself  die,"  Max  exclaimed. 

"It's  for  my  sake  you  care  like  that,  I  know!"  Sanda 
said.  "  And  /  can 't  let  you  die  —  anyhow,  without  telling 
you  something  first.  Does  the  poison,  if  you  've  got  it  in 
you,  kill  very  quickly?" 

"It  does,  rather,"  Max  admitted,  still  apologetically, 
because  he  could  not  bear  to  have  Sanda  suffer  for  him. 
"But  it's  a  painless  sort  of  an  end,  not  a  bad  one,  if  it 
wasn't  for  —  for " 

"For  leaving  me  alone.  I  understand.  And  because 
you  may  have  to  —  very  soon,  though  I  pray  not  —  I 
shall  tell  you  what  I  never  would  have  told  you  except 
for  this.  Only,  if  you  get  well,  you  must  promise  not  to 
speak  of  it  to  me  —  nor  even  to  seem  to  remember;  and 
truly  to  forget,  if  you  can." 

"I  promise,"  Max  said. 

"It's  this:  I  know  you  care  for  me,  Max,  and  I  care 
for  you,  too,  dearly,  dearly.  All  the  love  I  had  ready  for 
Richard  flowed  away  from  him,  like  a  river  whose  course 


342  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

had  been  changed  in  a  night  by  a  tremendous  shock 
of  earthquake.  Gradually  it  turned  toward  you.  You 
won  it.  You  deserve  it.  I  should  be  a  wretch  —  I 
shouldn't  be  natural  if  I  didn't  love  you !  That's  all  I  had 
to  tell.  I  couldn't  let  you  go  without  knowing.  And  if 
you  do  go,  I  shall  follow  you  soon,  because  I  couldn't  live 
through  a  day  more  of  my  awful  life  without  you." 

"Now  I  know  that  I  can't  die!"  Max's  voice  rang  out. 
"If  there  was  poison  in  my  blood,  it's  killed  with  the  joy 
of  what  you've  said  to  me." 

"Joy!"  Sanda  echoed.  "There  can  be  no  joy  for  us  in 
loving  each  other,  only  sorrow." 

"There's  joy  inlove  itself, "saidMax.  "Just  in  knowing." 
"  Though  we're  never  to  speak  of  it  again?  " 
"Even  though  we're  never  to  speak  of  it  again." 
So  they  came  to  Sanda's  tent;  and  Stan  ton,  sitting  in  his 
open  doorway,  saw  them  arrive  together.     With  great 
strides  he  crossed  the  strip  of  desert  between  the  two  tents, 
and  thrust  his  red  face  close  to  the  blanched  face  of  Max. 
His  eyes  spoke  the  ugly  thing  that  was  in  his  mind  before 
his  lips  could  utter  it.     But  Sanda  gave  him  no  time  for 
words  that  would  be  unforgivable. 

"I  had  gone  to  the  river,"  she  said,  with  a  hint  of 
pride  and  command  hi  her  voice  that  Max  had  never  heard 
from  her.  It  forbade  doubt  and  rang  clear  with  courage. 
"Monsieur  St.  George  was  afraid  for  me,  and  came  to 
bring  me  back.  On  the  way  he  killed  a  viper  that  would 
have  bitten  me,  and  was  bitten  himself.  He  has  cut  out 
the  flesh  round  the  wound  and  cauterized  it;  and  he 
will  live,  please  God,  w4th  care  and  rest." 

Taken  aback  by  the  challenging  air  of  one  who  usually 


SANDA  SPEAKS  343 

shrank  from  him,  Stanton  was  silenced.  Sanda's  words 
and  manner  carried  conviction;  and  even  before  she 
spoke  he  had  failed  in  goading  himself  to  believe  evil. 
Drunk,  he  had  for  the  moment  lost  all  instincts  of  a  gentle- 
man; but,  though  somehow  the  impulse  to  insult  Sanda 
was  beaten  down,  the  wish  to  punish  her  survived.  Max's 
wound  and  the  fever  sure  to  follow,  if  he  lived,  gave 
Stanton  a  chance  for  revenge  on  both  together,  which 
appealed  to  the  cruelty  in  him.  Besides,  it  offered  the 
brutal  opening  he  wanted  to  show  his  authority  over  the 
sullenly  mutinous  men. 

"Sorry,  but  St.  George  will  have  to  do  the  best  he  can 
without  rest,"  Stanton  announced  harshly.  "We  start  at 
four-thirty.  It  is  to  be  a  surprise  call." 

"But  we  were  to  stop  till  to-morrow  and  refit!"  Sanda 
protested  in  horror. 

"I've  changed  my  mind.  We  don't  need  to  refit.  In 
five  hours  we  shall  be  on  the  march." 

"  No ! "  cried  Sanda.  "  You  want  to  kill  my  only  friend, 
but  you  shall  not.  You  know  that  rest  is  his  one  chance, 
and  you'd  take  it  away.  I  won't  have  it  so.  He  stays 
here,  and  I  stay  with  him." 

"  Stay  and  be  damned,"  Stanton  bawled. 

The  men  sitting  by  the  distant  fire  heard  the  angry 
roar,  and  some  jumped  to  their  feet,  expecting  an  alarm. 

"Stay  and  be  damned,  and  may  the  vultures  pick  the 
flesh  off  your  lover's  bones,  while  the  sheikh  takes  you  to 
his  harem.  He's  welcome  to  you,"  Stanton  finished. 

Before  the  words  were  out  Max  leaped  at  the  Chief's 
throat.  All  the  advantage  of  youth  was  his,  against  the 
other's  bulk;  but  as  he  sprang  Ahmara  bounded  on  him 


344  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

from  behind,  winding  her  arms  around  his  body  and 
throwing  on  him  all  her  weight.  It  made  him  stagger, 
and,  snatching  up  the  heavy  campstool  on  which  he  had 
been  sitting,  Stanton  struck  Max  with  it  on  the  head. 
Weakened  already  by  the  anguish  in  the  torn  nerves  of  his 
hand  (most  painful  centre  for  a  wound  in  all  the  body), 
Max  fell  like  a  log,  and  lay  unconscious  while  Ahmara 
wriggled  herself  free. 

"He  asked  for  that,  and  now  he's  got  it,"  said  Stanton, 
panting.  "Serve him  right,  and  nobody  will  blame  me  if 
he's  dead.  But  he  isn't,  no  fear !  Fellows  like  him  belong 
to  the  leopard  tribe,  and  have  as  many  lives  as  a  cat. 
Good  girl,  Ahmara,  many  thanks." 

And  without  another  glance  toward  Max,  beside  whom 
Sanda  was  on  her  knees,  Stanton  threw  the  campstool  into 
the  tent  and  yelled  to  the  men  by  the  fire.  He  called  the 
names  of  two  who  were  his  special  servants,  but  most  of 
the  band  followed,  knowing  from  the  roar  of  rage  and 
the  one  sharp  cry  in  a  woman's  voice  that  something 
important  had  happened. 

Stanton  was  glad  when  he  saw  the  dark  crowd  troop 
toward  him,  though  in  his  first  flush  of  excitement  he  had 
not  thought  to  summon  every  one. 

"Come  on,  all  of  you!"  he  shouted.  "Now  halt!  You 
see  the  man  lying  there  —  at  my  feet,  where  he  belongs. 
He  was  my  trusted  lieutenant,  but  he  took  too  much  upon 
himself.  I  knocked  him  down  for  insubordination.  He 
doesn't  go  farther  with  the  caravan.  And  we  start  in  five 
hours.  Zaid  and  Mahmoud,  put  this  carrion  out  of  my 
sight.  I've  shown  you  all  what  happens  when  black  or 
white  men  disobey  my  orders." 


SANDA  SPEAKS  345 

No  one  came  forward.  From  her  knees  beside  Max 
Sanda  rose  up  slim  and  straight  and  stood  facing  the 
Arabs  and  negroes. 

"Men,"  she  cried  to  them,  "I've  done  my  best  for  you. 
I've  defended  you,  when  I  could,  from  injustice.  When 
you  have  been  sick  with  fevers  or  with  wounds  I  have 
nursed  you.  Now  my  father's  friend,  and  my  friend, 
who  to-night  has  saved  my  life,  lies  wounded.  If  you 
leave  him,  you  leave  me,  too,  for  I  stay  as  his  nurse. 
What  do  you  decide?  " 

Stanton  was  on  her  in  two  strides.  Seizing  her  arm 
he  twisted  it  with  a  savage  wrench  and  flung  her  tottering 
behind  him.  The  pain  forced  a  cry  from  the  girl,  and 
Ahmara  laughed.  That  was  more  than  the  men  could 
stand,  for  to  them  Sanda  was  always  the  White  Angel, 
Ahmara  the  Black;  and  over  there  by  the  fire  they  had 
discussed  a  deputation  to  Stanton,  announcing  that,  since 
starting,  they  had  heard  too  much  evil  of  the  haunted 
Libyan  desert  to  dare  venture  across  its  waterless  wastes. 
The  spirit  of  mutiny  was  in  them,  having  smouldered  and 
flashed  up,  smouldered  and  flamed  again  at  Stanton's 
cruelty.  This  was  too  much!  The  spark  was  fired.  A 
Senegalese  whom  Sanda  had  cured  of  a  scorpion  bite 
—  a  black  giant  to  whom  Max  had  lent  his  camel  when 
Stanton  would  have  left  him  in  the  desert  —  leaped  like 
a  tiger  on  the  Chief.  Steel  flashed  under  the  moon,  and 
Stanton  fell  back  without  a  groan,  striking  the  hard  sand 
and  staining  it  red. 

For  an  instant  there  was  silence.  Then  burst  forth  a 
wild  shout  of  hate  and  joy.  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

OUT   OF   THE    DREAM,    A   PLAN 

STANTON  was  dead,  hacked  in  pieces  by  the  men  he  had 
cursed  and  beaten.  Ahmara  had  fled  to  Darda'i  to  live 
as  she  could  by  her  beauty;  and  the  murderers,  taking 
with  them,  in  a  rage  of  haste  and  terror,  camels,  water, 
and  provisions,  had  disappeared.  The  caravan  of  the 
great  explorer  had  vanished  like  a  mirage;  and  the  Lost 
Oasis  lay  hidden  forever  from  despoiling  eyes  and  hands 
in  the  uncharted  Libyan  desert. 

At  dawn  Sanda  sat  beside  Max  in  his  tent,  where 
two  of  the  few  men  who  remained  had  carried  him. 
Through  the  hideous  hours  he  had  lain  as  one  dead. 
But  light,  touching  his  eyelids,  waked  him  with  a 
shuddering  start. 

"You!"  he  whispered.  "Safe!  I've  had  horrible 
dreams." 

"  Only  dreams,"  she  soothed  him. 

"  How  pale  you  are ! "     He  stared  at  her,  still  hah*  dazed. 

"  Perhaps  it's  the  light." 

"No,  it's  not  the  light.  I  remember  now.  .  .  . 
What  happened  after  he  —  I  - 

"  I'll  tell  you  when  you're  stronger." 

"I'm  strong  enough  for  anything.  Only  a  little  odd  in 
my  head." 

S46 


OUT  OF  THE  DREAM,  A  PLAN         347 

"And  your  poor  wounded  hand?  I  bathed  it  and  ban- 
daged it  again,  and  you  never  knew." 

"  Queer !  I  thought  if  I  were  dead  I  should  have  known 
if  you  touched  me!"  He  spoke  more  to  himself  than  to 
Sanda,  and  she  did  not  answer.  His  eyelids  drooped, 
and  presently  he  slept  again.  Hours  later,  when  he  woke, 
she  was  still  there.  It  seemed  to  the  girl  that  the  world 
had  fallen  to  pieces,  leaving  only  her  and  this  man  in  the 
ruins.  All  around  them  lay  the  vast  desert.  To  go  back 
whence  they  had  come  was  impossible.  To  go  on  seemed 
equally  impossible.  There  was  nowhere  to  go.  But 
they  were  together.  She  knew  that  nothing  could  part 
them  now,  not  life,  and  even  less  death,  yet  she  could  see 
no  future.  Everything  had  come  to  a  standstill,  and 
their  souls  might  as  well  be  out  of  their  bodies.  It  would 
be  so  much  simpler! 

She  gave  Max  tea  that  she  had  made;  and  when  she  had 
looked  at  his  hand  and  bandaged  it  again,  she  told  him  all 
that  had  happened.  How  the  Senegalese,  whose  brother 
Stanton  had  shot  for  pilfering,  a  month  ago,  had  stabbed 
Stanton  in  the  breast,  and  fifty  others  in  blood-madness 
had  rushed  to  finish  his  work.  How  Ahmara  had  run 
shrieking  to  the  village,  and  the  men,  still  in  madness, 
had  stolen  the  camels  and  gone  off  into  the  desert;  not  the 
murderers  only,  but  their  friends  who  saw  that  it  was  well 
to  disappear,  that  it  might  never  be  known  who  were  the 
men  that  saw  Richard  Stanton  die. 

Two  months  and  more  ago,  when  the  caravan  left 
Touggourt,  there  were  over  a  hundred  men  who  marched 
with  it.  Between  that  time  and  reaching  Dardal  thirty 
had  deserted,  and  a  few  had  died.  Now  all  had  flown. 


348  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

except  a  dozen  of  the  oldest  and  most  responsible  who 
refused  to  be  carried  away  by  their  comrades'  vague  fear 
of  reprisals.  Just  these  twelve  were  left  with  fifteen  cam- 
els and  a  small  store  of  arms  and  provisions.  There 
was  money  also,  untouched  in  Stanton's  tent,  and  some 
bales  of  European  rugs,  clocks,  and  musical  boxes,  which 
the  explorer  had  brought  as  gifts  for  native  rulers.  The 
question  pressed:  what  was  to  be  done?  Sanda  could 
find  no  answer;  but  Max  had  two.  They  might  turn  back 
and  go  the  way  they  had  come.  Or  they  might  go  on,  not 
trying  to  cross  the  Libyan  desert  in  the  direction  of  As- 
souan, as  Stanton  had  hoped  to  do,  but  skirting  southward 
by  a  longer  route  where  the  desert  was  charted  and  oases 
existed.  After  a  journey  of  seventy  or  eighty  days  they 
might  hope  to  find  their  way  through  Kordofan  to  Omdur- 
man,  and  then  across  the  Nile  to  civilized  Khartoum.  It 
was  this  idea  that  the  leading  mutineers,  frightened  by 
tales  of  the  terrible  Libyan  desert,  had  meant  to  suggest 
to  Stanton;  and  if  he  refused  their  intention  had  been  to 
desert.  The  murder,  Max  felt  sure,  had  not  been 
premeditated;  but  he  did  not  believe  that  it  was  re- 
gretted. 

"I  will  not  go  back  to  Touggourt,"  Sanda  said,  when  he 
had  described  to  her  the  two  plans. 

"  Why?     Because  you  are  thinking  of  me?  "  he  asked. 

"Partly  that.  But  it  would  be  as  bad  for  me  as  for 
you,  now,  if  you  were  to  be  arrested  as  a  deserter.  And 
besides,"  Sanda  went  on  hurriedly,  determined  to  show 
him  it  was  for  her  sake  more  than  his  that  she  objected, 
"I've  suffered  so  much  I  couldn't  go  again  along  that  Via 
Dolorosa.  I  want  to  get  away  from  the  very  thought  of 


OUT  OF  THE  DREAM,  A  PLAN         349 

it.  New  scenes  will  be  better.  How  many  miles  must 
we  journey  to  Omdurman  and  Khartoum?" 

"  Nearly  a  thousand,"  Max  confessed. 

"More  than  we've  come  with  our  great  caravan!  It's 
not  possible." 

"  It  must  be  possible ! "  said  Max.  "  We'll  make  it  pos- 
sible." 

"  Surely  such  a  thing  has  never  been  done ! " 

"  Maybe  not,  but  we'll  do  it.  I  feel  now  that  I  have 
the  strength  of  a  hundred  men  in  myself." 

"You  haven't  even  the  strength  of  one.  We  must 
stay  here  till  you  are  stronger."  Yet  she  shivered  and 
grew  cold  at  the  thought  of  staying  on,  even  with  Max, 
close  to  the  grave  the  men  had  dug  for  Stan  ton  in  the  sand. 

"I  shall  be  better  travelling,"  Max  urged.  He  would 
not  tell  Sanda,  but  he  felt  it  unsafe  to  stay  long  near 
Dardai  with  so  few  men.  The  sheikh  had  been  hospitable 
to  Stanton,  but  things  were  different  now.  Ahmara 
would  tell  about  the  money  and  the  boxes  and  bales  full 
of  presents.  The  temptation  virtuously  to  punish  those 
who  were  left,  for  the  fate  of  the  explorer,  would  be  too 
great,  and  the  excuse  too  good. 

"  We  shall  have  to  get  off  after  the  heat  of  the  day,"  Max 
insisted.  "  I've  lain  here  long  enough,  for,  you  see,  I  must 
be  leader  now  for  you.  I  must  talk  to  the  men  and  tell 
them  what  we've  decided." 

"How  little  we  are  in  this  great  desert,  to  talk  of  'de- 
ciding,'" the  girl  exclaimed.  "It  is  the  desert  that  will 
decide.  But  — you  will  be  with  me  always  .  .  . 
as  in  my  dream ! " 

"And  mine,"  Max  added. 


350  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

Then  followed  day  upon  day  of  the  desert  dream.  Some 
days  were  evil  and  some  were  good,  but  none  could  ever 
be  forgotten.  The  man  and  the  girl  whose  dreams  had 
come  true  never  spoke  of  the  future,  though  waking  or 
sleeping  the  thought  was  seldom  out  of  their  minds. 

"I  can't  give  her  up  now,  whatever  happens,"  Max  said 
to  himself  sometimes.  Yet  he  did  not  see  how  he  should 
be  able,  in  justice  to  the  girl,  to  keep  her.  In  British 
territory  he  would  be  safe  from  arrest  as  a  deserter  from 
the  Legion.  But  the  very  thought  of  himself  as  a  deserter 
was  torture  from  which  he  could  never  escape.  He  re- 
gretted nothing.  What  he  had  done  he  would  do  again 
if  he  had  it  to  do,  even  in  ignorance  of  the  reward  —  her 
love.  But  he  remembered  how  he  had  tried  to  puzzle 
out  some  other  way  for  Valdez,  and  how  impossible  it 
would  have  seemed  then,  that  he  should  ever  follow 
Manoel's  example.  He  loved  Colonel  DeLisle  and  he  had 
loved  the  Legion  with  all  its  tragedies,  and  been  proud  of 
his  place  in  it.  He  looked  upon  himself  as  a  man  dis- 
graced, and  did  not  see  how  he  should  ever  be  able  to  make 
a  position  in  the  world  worthy  to  be  shared  by  Sanda. 
Besides,  it  would  be  disastrous  for  Colonel  DeLisle,  as  an 
official,  if  his  daughter  should  marry  a  deserter.  That  was 
one  of  the  things  that  "would  not  do."  Yet  Sanda  loved 
the  deserter,  and  fate  had  bound  them  together.  The 
spirit  of  the  desert  was  making  them  one.  Max  did  not 
know  that  out  of  Sanda's  dreams  had  been  born  a  plan. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

THE  PLAY  OF  CROSS  PURPOSES 

WHEN  Max  St.  George,  with  seven  emaciated  Arabs  and 
five  dilapidated  camels,  crawled  into  Omdurman,  bringing 
Richard  Stanton's  young  widow,  their  arrival  made  a 
sensation  for  all  Egypt.  Later,  in  Khartoum,  when  the 
history  of  the  murder  and  the  subsequent  march  of  nine 
hundred  miles  came  out,  it  became  a  sensation  for  Europe 
and  America. 

Rumours  had  run  ahead  of  the  little  party,  from  Kordo- 
fan,  birthland  of  the  terrible  Mahdi;  but  the  whole  story 
was  patched  together  from  disjointed  bits  only,  when  the 
caravan  arrived  in  civilization.  Very  little  was  got  out 
of  the  fever-stricken,  haggard  young  man  who  (according 
to  Mrs.  Stanton)  was  the  hero  of  the  great  adventure, 
impossible  to  have  been  carried  through  for  a  single  day 
without  him.  It  was  Sanda  who  told  the  tale,  told  it 
voluntarily,  even  eagerly,  to  every  one  who  questioned  her. 
She  could  not  give  Max  St.  George  — that  mysterious 
young  man  who  apparently  had  no  country  and  no  past 
-  enough  praise  to  satisfy  her  gratitude.  There  had 
been  terrible  sandstorms  in  which  they  would  have  given 
themselves  up  for  lost  if  it  had  not  been  for  his  energy  and 
courage.  Once  they  had  strayed  a  long  way  off  their 
track  and  nearly  starved  and  died  of  thirst  before  they 

851 


352  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

could  find  an  oasis  they  had  aimed  for  and  renew  ex- 
hausted supplies.  But  Max  St.  George's  spirit  had  never 
flagged  even  after  the  mosquito-ridden  swamp  where  he 
had  caught  a  touch  of  malarial  fever.  Through  his  pres- 
ence of  mind  and  military  skill  the  party  had  been 
saved  from  extinction  in  a  surprise  attack  by  a  band  of 
desert  marauders  twice  their  number.  Every  night  he  had 
protected  the  little  camp  by  forming  round  it  a  hollow 
square  of  camels  and  baggage,  and  keeping  a  sentinel 
posted,  generally  himself.  It  was  through  these  precau- 
tions they  had  been  able  to  withstand  the  surprise  and 
drive  the  robbers  off  with  the  loss  only  of  a  few  men  and 
some  of  the  camels.  They  had  fought  and  conquered  the 
enemy  under  a  flag  of  the  Legion,  a  miniature  copy  given 
by  Colonel  DeLisle  to  his  daughter.  There  had  not  been 
one  desertion  from  their  ranks,  except  by  death,  and  all 
was  owing  —  Sanda  said  —  to  the  spirit  Max  St.  George 
had  infused  into  his  followers.  He  insisted  that  the 
latter  were  the  only  heroes,  if  any,  and  the  Arabs  from 
far-off  Touggourt  enjoyed  such  fame  as  they  had  asso- 
ciated with  the  delights  of  a  paradise  reserved  for  warriors. 
But  of  himself  Max  St.  George  would  not  talk;  and  people 
said  to  each  other,  "  Who  is  this  young  fellow  who  was  the 
only  white  man  with  Stanton?  He  seems  at  home  in  every 
language.  Where  did  he  come  from  ?  " 

Nobody  could  tell.  Not  a  soul  knew  what  his  past 
had  been.  But  as  for  his  future,  it  seemed  not  unlikely 
that  it  might  be  limited  on  this  earth;  for  having  finished 
his  mission,  and  taken  Mrs.  Stanton  as  far  as  Cairo  on  her 
way  back  to  Algeria,  he  succumbed  to  the  fever  he  had 
resisted  ferociously  while  his  services  were  needed.  When 


THE  PLAY  OF  CROSS  PURPOSES        353 

there  was  nothing  to  do  he  relaxed  a  little  and  the  flame 
in  his  blood  burned  unchecked. 

Mrs.  Stanton's  exhibition  of  gratitude,  however,  was 
admirable  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  focussed  upon  her.  If 
Richard  Stanton  had  not  been  a  magnificent  man,  cele- 
brated for  his  successes  with  women,  and  having  the 
added  attraction  of  fame  as  an  explorer,  people  might 
have  suggested  that  the  widow's  remaining  in  Cairo  to 
nurse  St.  George  was  not  entirely  disinterested.  But  as 
it  was,  nobody  said  disagreeable  things  about  the  beauti- 
ful, pale  young  creature,  and  the  haggard  skeleton  of  a 
man  who  had  pioneered  her  safely  through  the  Sahara  and 
Libyan  deserts. 

It  was  as  much  because  of  her  beauty,  which  gave  a  glam- 
our of  almost  classic  romance  to  the  wild  business,  as  because 
of  Stanton 's  reputation  and  the  amazing  madness  of  his 
last  venture,  that  newspapers  all  over  the  civilized  world 
gave  columns  to  the  story.  Somehow,  snapshots  of  Max  St. 
George,  as  well  as  several  of  Sanda,  had  been  snatched  by 
enterprising  journalists  before  St.  George  fell  ill  in  Cairo. 
These  were  telegraphed  for  and  bought  by  newspapers 
of  England,  Spain,  Italy,  France,  America,  Algeria,  and 
even  Germany,  which  had  not  loved  Stanton.  The  next 
thing  that  happened  was  the  report  in  Algerian  papers 
that  Max  St.  George,  "lejeune  homme  de  mystire"  was  a 
missing  soldier  of  the  Legion,  who  had  deserted  from  an 
important  mission  to  join  Stanton's  caravan.  Sensa- 
tion everywhere!  Paragraphs  reminding  the  public  of 
a  curious  fact:  that  young  Mrs.  Stanton  was  the  daughter 
of  the  colonel  of  the  Legion.  Strange  if  she  had  not 
known  from  the  first  that  the  recruit  to  her  husband's  ex- 


354  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

pedition  was  a  deserter  from  her  father's  regiment.  And 
what  a  situation  for  the  colonel  himself!  His  daughter 
protected  during  a  long  desert  journey  of  incalculable 
peril  by  a  man  whom  it  would  be  her  father's  duty  to  have 
arrested  and  court-martialled  if  he  were  on  French  soil. 

Journalists  argued  the  delicate  question,  whether,  in  the 
circumstances,  it  would  be  possible  for  Colonel  DeLisle  to 
do  anything  officially  toward  obtaining  a  pardon  for  St. 
George  —  whose  name  probably  was  not  St.  George, 
since  no  man  wore  anything  so  obvious  as  his  own  name 
in  the  Foreign  Legion.  Retired  officers  wrote  letters  to 
the  papers  and  pointed  out  that  for  DeLisle  to  work  in  St. 
George's  favour,  simply  because  accident  had  enabled 
the  deserter  to  aid  a  member  of  his  colonel's  family, 
would  be  inadmissible.  If  St.  George  were  the  right  sort 
of  man  and  soldier  he  would  not  expect  or  wish  it.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  he  did  neither;  but  then,  at  the  time,  he 
was  in  a  physical  state  which  precluded  conscious  wishes 
and  expectations.  He  did  not  know  or  care  what  hap- 
pened; though  sometimes,  in  intervals  of  seeing  marvellous 
mirages  of  the  Lost  Oasis,  and  fighting  robbers,  or  pre- 
scribing for  sick  camels,  he  appeared  vaguely  to  recognize 
the  face  of  his  nurse;  not  the  professional,  but  the  amateur. 
"Sanda,  Sanda!"  he  would  mutter,  or  cry  out  aloud;  but 
as  fortunately  no  one  knew  that  Mrs.  Stanton,  nee  Cori- 
sande  DeLisle,  was  called  "Sanda"  by  those  who  loved 
her,  the  doctor  and  the  professional  nurse  supposed  he  was 
babbling  about  the  sand  of  the  desert.  He  had  certainly 
had  a  distressing  amount  of  it ! 

Max  would  have  been  immensely  interested  if  he  could 
have  known  at  this  time  of  three  persons  in  different  parts 


THE  PLAY  OF  CROSS  PURPOSES        355 

of  the  world  who  were  working  for  him  in  different  ways. 
There  was  Manoel  Valdez  in  Rome,  where  he  had  arrived 
with  Ourieda  by  way  of  Tunis  and  Sicily,  instead  of  get- 
ting to  Spain  according  to  his  earlier  plan.  Manoel,  sing- 
ing with  magnificent  success  in  grand  opera,  proclaimed 
himself  Juan  Garcia,  a  fellow-deserter  with  St.  George, 
in  order  to  gild  St.  George's  escapade  with  glory.  Not 
only  did  he  talk  to  every  one,  and  permit  his  fascinating 
Spanish-Arab  bride  to  talk,  but  he  let  himself  be  inter- 
viewed by  newspapers.  Perhaps  all  this  was  a  good  ad- 
vertisement in  a  way;  but  he  was  making  a  succes  fou, 
and  did  not  need  advertisement.  Genuinely  and  sincerely 
he  was  baring  his  heart  and  bringing  his  wife  into  the 
garish  limelight  because  of  his  passionate  gratitude  to  Max 
St.  George. 

The  interview  was  copied  everywhere,  and  Sanda  read 
it  in  Cairo,  learning  for  the  first  time  not  only  many 
generous  acts  of  St.  George  of  which  she  had  never  heard, 
but  gathering  details  of  Ourieda 's  escape  with  Valdez, 
at  which  till  then  she  had  merely  been  able  to  guess.  The 
entire  plot  of  Manoel's  love  drama,  from  the  first  grim 
scene  of  stunning  the  prospective  bridegroom  on  the  way 
to  his  unwilling  bride,  to  the  escape  from  the  douar  in  the 
quiet  hours  when  Tahar  was  supposed  to  be  left  alone 
with  the  "Agha's  Rose,"  on  to  the  hiding  at  Djazerta, 
and  stealing  away  in  disguise  with  a  caravan  while  the 
hunt  took  another  direction,  all  had  played  itself  out  accord- 
ing to  his  plan.  Valdez  attributed  the  whole  success  to 
St.  George's  help,  advice,  and  gifts  of  money,  down  to  the 
last  franc  in  his  possession.  And  now  Manoel  began  to  pay 
the  debt  he  owed,  by  calling  on  the  world's  sympathy  for 


356  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

the  deserter,  who  might  not  set  foot  on  French  soil  with- 
out being  arrested.  Thus  the  singer's  golden  voice  was 
raised  for  Max  in  Italy.  In  Algeria  old  "Four  Eyes" 
was  working  for  him  like  the  demon  that  he  looked ;  having 
returned  with  his  colonel  and  comrades  to  Sidi-bel-Abbes 
after  the  long  march  and  a  satisfactory  fight  with  the 
"  Deliverer,"  he  soon  received  news  of  the  lost  one.  With 
roars  of  derision  he  refused  to  believe  in  the  little  "corpo- 
ral's" voluntary  desertion,  and  from  the  first  moment 
began  to  agitate.  What!  punish  a  hero  for  his  heroism? 
That,  in  Four  Eyes'  vilely  profane  opinion,  expressed 
with  elaborate  expletives  in  the  Legion's  own  choicest  ver- 
nacular, was  what  it  would  amount  to  if  St.  George  were 
branded  "deserter."  Precisely  why  Max  had  joined  Stan- 
ton  's  caravan  instead  of  returning  to  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  per- 
haps a  few  days  late,  Four  Eyes  was  not  certain;  but  there 
was  no  one  better  instructed  than  he  in  pretending  to  know 
things  he  merely  conjectured.  He  had  seen  Ahmara,  the 
dancer,  and  had  told  Max  the  scandal  connecting  her 
with  the  explorer.  "What  more  natural  than  that  a 
soldier  of  the  Legion  should,  for  his  colonel's  sake,  sacri- 
fice his  whole  career  to  protect  the  daughter  from  such  a 
husband  as  Stanton?  No  doubt  the  boy  knew  that  Stan- 
ton  meant  to  take  Ahmara  with  him,  and  had  left  every- 
thing to  stand  between  the  girl  and  such  a  pair." 

In  his  own  picturesque  and  lurid  language  Four  Eyes 
presented  these  conjectures  of  his  as  if  they  were  facts; 
and  to  do  him  justice  he  believed  in  them.  Also,  he  took 
pains  to  rake  up  every  old  tale  of  cruelty,  vanity,  or  lust 
that  had  been  told  in  the  past  about  Richard  Stanton, 
and  embroider  them.  Beside  the  satyr  figure  which  he 


THE  PLAY  OF  CROSS  PURPOSES        857 

flaunted  like  a  dummy  Guy  Fawkes,  Max  St.  George 
shone  a  pure  young  martyr.  Never  had  old  Four  Eyes 
enjoyed  such  popularity  among  the  townfolk  of  Sidi-bel- 
Abbes  as  in  these  days,  and  he  had  the  satisfaction  of 
seeing  veiled  allusions  to  his  anecdotes  in  newspapers 
when  he  could  afford  to  buy  or  was  able  to  steal  them. 
On  the  strength  of  his  triumph  he  got  up  among  his  fellow 
Legionnaires  a  petition  for  the  pardon  and  reinstatement 
of  Corporal  St.  George.  Not  a  man  refused  to  sign,  for 
even  those  who  might  have  hesitated  would  not  have 
done  so  long  under  the  basilisk  stare  of  the  ex-champion 
of  boxing. 

"Sign,  or  I'll  smash  you  to  a  jelly,"  was  his  remark  to 
one  recruit  who  had  not  heard  enough  of  St.  George  or 
Four  Eyes  to  dash  his  name  on  paper  the  instant  he  saw 
a  pen. 

While  the  petition  was  growing  Colonel  DeLLsle  (who 
gave  no  sign  that  he  had  heard  of  it)  obtained  ten  days' 
leave,  the  first  he  had  asked  for  in  many  years,  and  took 
ship  for  Algiers  to  Alexandria  to  see  his  daughter.  But  that 
did  not  discourage  Four  Eyes;  on  the  contrary,  "The  Old 
Man  doesn't  want  to  be  in  it,  see?"  said  Pelle.  "It  ain't 
for  him,  in  the  circus,  to  do  the  trick;  it's  for  us, ses  enfanls! 
And  damn  all  four  of  my  eyes,  we'll  do  it,  if  we  have  to 
mutiny  as  our  comrades  once  did  before  us,  when  they 
made  big  history  in  the  Legion." 

The  third  person  who,  unasked,  took  an  active  interest 
in  Max  St.  George's  affairs  was,  of  all  people  on  earth,  the 
last  whom  he  or  any  one  else  would  have  expected  to 
meddle  with  them.  This  was  Bille  Brockton,  married  to 
her  Chicago  millionaire,  and  trying,  tooth  and  nail,  with 


J58  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

the  aid  of  his  money,  to  break  into  the  inner  fastnesses  of 
New  York  and  Newport's  Four  Hundred.  It  was  all  be- 
cause of  a  certain  resistance  to  her  efforts  that  suddenly, 
out  of  revenge  and  not  through  love,  she  took  up  Max's 
cause.  The  powder  train  was  —  unwittingly  —  laid 
months  before  by  Josephine  Doran-Reeves,  as  she  pre- 
ferred to  call  herself  after  her  marriage  with  the  son  of  the 
Dorans'  lawyer.  Neither  she  nor  Grant  —  who  had  taken 
the  name  of  Doran-Reeves  also  —  liked  to  think  or 
talk  of  the  man  who  had  disappeared.  On  consideration, 
the  Reeveses,  father  and  son,  had  decided  not  to  make 
public  the  story  of  Josephine's  birth  which  Max  had 
given  to  them.  They  feared  that  his  great  sacrifice 
would  create  too  much  sympathy  for  Max  and  rouse 
indignation  against  Josephine  and  her  husband  for  ac- 
cepting it,  allowing  the  martyr  to  disappear,  penniless, 
into  space.  At  first  they  said  nothing  at  all  about  him, 
merely  giving  out  that  Josephine  Doran  was  a  distant 
relative  who  had  been  brought  to  the  Doran  house  on 
Rose's  death;  but  all  sorts  of  inconvenient  questions  be- 
gan to  be  asked  about  Max  Doran,  into  whose  house  and 
fortune  the  strange-looking,  half-beautiful,  half-terrible, 
red-haired  girl  had  suddenly,  inexplicably  stepped. 

Max's  friends  in  society  and  the  army  did  not  let  him 
pass  into  oblivion  without  a  word;  therefore  some  sort  of 
story  had  to  eventually  be  told  to  silence  tongues,  and, 
still  worse,  newspapers.  Grant  was  singularly  good  at 
making  up  stories,  and  always  had  been  since,  as  a  boy, 
he  had  unobtrusively  contrived  to  throw  blame  off  his  own 
shoulders  on  to  those  of  Max  if  they  were  in  a  scrape  to- 
gether. 


THE  PLAY  OF  CROSS  PURPOSES        359 

Half  a  lie,  nicely  mixed  with  a  few  truths,  makes  a  con- 
coction that  the  public  swallows  readily.  Max  was  too 
young,  and  had  been  too  much  away  from  New  York,  to 
be  greatly  missed  there,  despite  Rose  Doran 's  popularity; 
and  when  such  an  interesting  and  handsome  couple  as 
Grant  and  Josephine  Doran-Reeves  began  entertaining 
gorgeously  in  the  renovated  Doran  house,  the  ex-lieu- 
tenant of  cavalry  was  forgotten  comparatively  soon. 
It  seemed,  according  to  reluctant  admissions  made  at 
last  by  Grant  and  Josephine  to  their  acquaintances,  that 
Max  had  had  secret  reasons  for  resigning  his  commission  in 
the  army  and  vanishing  into  space.  It  was  his  own  wish 
to  give  up  the  old  house  to  Josephine,  his  "distant  cousin 
from  France,"  and  in  saying  this  they  carefully  gave  the 
impression  that  he  had  been  well  paid.  Nobody  dreamed 
that  the  money  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Grant  Doran-Reeves  spent 
in  such  charming  ways  had  once  belonged  to  Max.  He 
was  supposed  to  have  "come  a  cropper"  somehow,  as  so 
many  young  men  did,  and  to  have  disappeared  with 
everything  he  had,  out  of  the  country,  for  his  country's 
good.  When  people  realized  that  there  was  a  secret,  per- 
haps a  disgraceful  one,  many  were  sorry  for  poor  Grant 
and  Josephine,  mixed  up  in  it  through  no  fault  of  their 
own;  and  the  name  of  Max  Doran  was  dropped  from  con- 
versation whenever  his  innocent  relatives  were  within  hear- 
ing distance.  Then,  by  and  by,  it  was  practically  dropped 
altogether,  because  it  had  passed  out  of  recollection. 

This  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  the  beautiful  Billie 
(Mrs.  Jeff  Houston)  arrived,  covered  with  diamonds  and 
pearls  (the  best  of  the  latter  were  Max's),  to  storm  social 
New  York.  She  had  already  won  its  heart  as  an  actress, 


360  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

but  as  a  respectable  married  woman  who  had  left  the  stage 
and  connected  herself  by  marriage  with  a  sausage-maker 
she  was  a  different  "proposition." 

"You  ought  to  know  some  woman  in  the  smart  set," 
advised  a  friend  in  the  half -smart  set  who  had  received 
favours  from  Billie,  and  had  not  been  able  to  give  the  right 
sort  of  return.  "Oh,  of  course,  you  do  know  a  lot  of  the 
men,  but  they're  worse  than  no  use  to  you  now.  It  must 
be  a  woman, '  way  high  up  at  the  top.' " 

Billie  racked  her  brains,  and  thought  of  Josephine 
Doran-Reeves.  Josephine  was  "way  up  at  the  top," 
because  she  was  a  Doran  and  very  rich,  and  so  queer  that 
she  amused  the  most  bored  people,  whether  she  meant  to 
or  not.  Unfortunately,  Billie  did  not  know  her,  but  the 
next  best  thing,  surely,  was  to  have  known  Max  Doran. 

Billie  had  made  capital  out  of  Max  in  the  shape  of  a 
famous  blue  diamond  and  a  string  of  uniquely  fine  pearls, 
and  her  idea  had  been  that  she  had  got  all  there  was  to  be 
got  from  him.  In  fact,  she  had  not  mentioned  this  little 
love-idyll  even  to  her  husband.  Suddenly,  however,  she 
remembered  that  they  two  had  been  dear,  dear  friends  — 
perfectly  platonic  friends,  of  course  —  and  she  felt  justified 
in  writing  a  sweet  letter  to  Josephine  asking  tactfully  for 
news  of  Max.  She  put  her  point  charmingly,  and  begged 
that  she  might  be  allowed  to  call  on  dear  Mrs.  Doran- 
Reeves,  to  chat  cozily  about  "that  darling  boy,"  or  would 
Mrs.  Doran-Reeves  rather  come  and  have  tea  with  her 
one  day,  any  day,  at  the  Plaza  Hotel?  She  was  staying 
there  until  the  house  her  husband  had  bought  for  her 
(quite  near  the  Doran  house)  should  be  out  of  the  decora- 
tor's hands. 


THE  PLAY  OF  CROSS  PURPOSES        361 

But  the  last  thing  that  appealed  to  Josephine  was  the 
thought  of  a  cozy  chat  about  "that  darling  boy"  Max. 
Besides,  the  moment  was  a  bad  one  with  her.  Captain  de 
la  Tour  had  got  long  leave  and  come  to  America,  she  did 
not  know  why  at  first,  and  had  been  inclined  to  feel  rather 
flattered,  if  slightly  frightened.  But  soon  she  found  out. 
He  had  come  to  blackmail  her.  There  were  some  silly 
letters  she  had  written  when  they  were  in  the  thick  of  their 
flirtation  at  Sidi-bel- Abbes,  and  the  height  of  her  ambition 
had  been  to  marry  a  French  officer,  no  matter  how  poor. 
Captain  de  la  Tour  had  kept  those  letters. 

He  did  not  threaten  to  show  them  to  Grant  Doran- 
Reeves.  He  judged  the  other  man  by  himself  and  realized 
that,  having  married  a  girl  for  her  money,  Grant  would 
not  throw  her  over,  or  even  hurt  her  feelings,  while  she 
still  had  it. 

What  Captain  de  la  Tour  proposed  was  to  sell  the 
letters  and  tell  the  romantic  story  of  Mrs.  Doran-Reeves'i 
life  in  a  little  Algerian  hotel  if  she  did  not  buy  up  the 
whole  secret  and  his  estates  in  France  at  the  same  time, 
For  the  two  together  he  asked  only  the  ridiculously  small 
price  of  three  hundred  thousand  francs  —  sixty  thousand 
dollars. 

Josephine  had  raged,  for  Grant,  even  more  than  she, 
hated  to  spend  money  where  a  show  could  not  be  made 
with  it.     But  Captain  de  la  Tour  was  rather  insistent 
and  got  on  her  nerves.     In  an  hysterical  fit,  therefore,  she 
made  a  clean  breast  of  the  story  to  her  husband.    When 
she  had  described  to  him  as  well  as  she  could  what  was 
the  letters,  and  what  a  Bohemian  sort  of  life  she  had  1 
in  Bel-Abbes,  Grant  decided  that  it  would  be  romantic 


362  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

as  well  as  sensible  to  buy  the  Chateau  de  la  Tour.  Jo- 
sephine had  actually  been  born  there;  and  they  could  either 
keep  the  place  or  sell  it  when  it  had  been  improved  a  bit 
and  made  famous  by  a  few  choice  house-parties. 

So  the  Doran-Reeveses  bought  the  chdteau  and  got 
back  the  letters,  and  hoped  that  Captain  de  la  Tour  would 
take  himself  and  his  ill-gotten  gains  out  of  the  United 
States.  But  he  lingered,  looking  out  for  an  American 
heiress,  while  Josephine  existed  in  a  state  of  constant 
irritation,  fearing  some  new  demand  or  an  indiscretion. 
And  it  was  just  at  this  time  that  she  received  Mrs.  Jeff 
Houston's  letter.  Naturally  it  gave  her  great  pleasure 
to  snub  some  one,  especially  a  woman  prettier  than  her- 
self. She  took  no  notice  of  Billie's  appeal,  and  when  Mrs. 
Houston,  hoping  somehow  that  it  had  not  reached  its 
destination,  spoke  to  her  sweetly  one  night  at  the  opera, 
Josephine  was  rude  before  some  of  the  "best  people"  in 
New  York. 

After  that,  Billie  said  to  every  one  that  Mrs.  Doran- 
Reeves  was  insane  as  well  as  deformed;  but  that  "cut  no 
ice,"  as  Jeff  Houston  remarked,  and  when  the  snapshot 
of  Max  St.  George,  deserter  from  the  Foreign  Legion, 
appeared  with  the  newspaper  story  of  Sanda  Stanton, 
Billie  did  what  Jeff  described  as  "falling  over  herself"  to 
get  to  the  office  of  Town  Tales. 

She  told  nothing  damaging  to  the  late  Miss  Brockton  in 
mentioning  Max  Doran,  and  of  him  she  spoke  with  friendly 
enthusiasm.  He  had  been  so  good,  so  kind  to  her,  and 
so  different  from  many  young  men  who  were  good  to 
actresses.  It  broke  her  heart  to  think  of  his  fate,  for 
there  was  no  doubt  that  Max  St.  George,  the  Legionnaire, 


THE  PLAY  OF  CROSS  PURPOSES        363 

and  Max  Doran  were  one.  Billie  told  how,  to  her  certain 
knowledge,  Max  had  sacrificed  himself  for  Josephine 
Doran,  who  (for  some  reason  he  was  too  noble  to  reveal, 
but  it  had  to  do  with  a  secret  of  ancestry)  seemed  to  him 
the  rightful  heiress. 

Penniless,  Max  had  been  forced  to  resign  from  an  expen- 
sive regiment,  where  he  lived  expensively.  He  had  done 
this  for  Josephine's  sake,  though  he  had  loved  his  career 
better  than  anything  else  in  the  world.  And  then,  last  of 
all,  he  had  effaced  himself  rather  than  accept  pity  or 
favours.  He  had  enlisted  in  the  Foreign  Legion,  and  now 
he  had  further  shown  the  nobility  of  his  nature  by  the  very 
way  in  which  he  had  fallen  into  disgrace.  But  what  did 
the  Doran-Reeveses  do,  though  they  owed  everything  to 
him?  They  told  lies  and  ignored  his  existence.  Mrs. 
Jeff  Houston  said  that  she  felt  it  her  duty  as  Max  Doran's 
only  faithful  friend  to  bring  this  injustice  to  public 
notice. 

Town  Tales  was  delighted  to  help  her  do  this,  be- 
cause she  was  Billie  Brookton,  a  celebrity,  and  because 
it  was  "good  copy."  Other  papers  —  many  other  papers 
—  took  up  the  hue  and  cry  which  Town  Tales  started; 
and  the  Doran-Reeveses'  life  became  not  as  agreeable 
as  it  had  been. 

They  defended  themselves  to  friends  and  enemies  and 
newspaper  men,  and  thought  of  suing  Town  Tale*  for 
libel,  but  were  dissuaded  from  doing  so  by  old  Mr.  Reeves. 
Then  it  occurred  to  Josephine  to  let  every  one  know  that, 
though  she  was  being  cruelly  maligned,  she  wished,  as  a 
proof  of  her  admiration  for  Max's  desert  exploits,  to  pre- 
sent him  with  all  her  French  property,  the  magnificent 


364  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

old  vineyard-surrounded  Chateau  de  la  Tour,  where  he 
could  cultivate  grapes  and  make  his  fortune. 

The  papers  pointed  out  that  this  was  something  like 
sending  coals  to  Newcastle,  as  St.  George,  alias  Doran, 
was  debarred  from  entering  France  unless  he  wanted  to  go 
to  prison.  But  Josephine  and  Grant  quickly  retorted  that 
the  recipient  of  their  bounty  need  not  live  in  France  in 
order  to  benefit.  He  could  sell  or  let  the  Chateau  de  la 
Tour  through  some  agent. 

Not  an  echo  of  all  this  play  of  cross  purposes  reached 
Max  at  the  nursing  home  in  Cairo,  where  he  had  been 
carried  by  Sanda's  orders  after  breaking  down.  But 
Sanda,  who  took  in  a  dozen  papers  to  see  what  they  had 
to  say  about  the  "deserter,"  read  what  was  going  on  at 
New  York  as  well  as  in  Rome  and  at  Sidi-bel-Abbes. 
She  saw  that  Max  had  been  presented  with  estates  in 
France  by  the  woman  who  had  taken  everything  and 
given  nothing;  and  because  of  queer  things  Max  had 
let  drop  in  his  delirium  she  understood  more  of  the  past 
than  he  would  have  revealed  of  his  own  free  will.  For 
one  thing,  she  learnt  that  a  certain  Jack  and  Rose 
Doran  had  had  a  child  born  to  them  at  the  Chateau 
de  la  Tour.  This  enabled  her  to  put  other  things  to- 
gether in  her  mind,  and  loving  Max  as  she  did,  she  saw 
no  harm  in  thus  using  her  wits,  while  she  respected 
him  with  all  her  heart  for  not  telling  the  secret.  Besides, 
she  had  met  Captain  de  la  Tour  in  Sidi-bel-Abbes,  and 
she  had  guessed  that  it  was  partly  because  of  him  and 
one  or  two  others  like  him  that  her  father  had  sent  her  to 
the  Agha's  rather  than  leave  her  at  Bel- Abbes  alone. 

"  It  would  be  the  most  wonderful  sort  of  poetic  justice, " 


THE  PLAY  OF  CROSS  PURPOSES        365 

she  reflected,  sitting  at  Max's  bedside  one  day  while  he 
slept,  "if  the  old  place  of  his  ancestors  should  come  back 
to  him  at  last." 

This  thought  reminded  her  of  her  plan.  Not  that  she 
ever  forgot  it;  but  she  had  to  put  it  into  the  background 
of  her  mind  until  she  was  sure  that  Max  was  going  to  get 
well.  Until  then,  she  could  not  and  would  not  leave  him. 
But  at  last  she  was  sure;  and  she  was  waiting  only  to  find 
out  if  her  father  could  help;  or  if  not,  till  his  leave  was 
over  and  she  was  left  to  act  for  herself  without  compro- 
mising the  Legion's  colonel. 

If  Sanda  had  loved  her  father  in  their  days  together  at 
Bel-Abbes,  she  loved  him  a  thousand  times  more  in  those 
few  days  of  his  visit  at  Cairo.  He  forgave  her  without 
being  asked  for  leaving  him  "  in  the  lurch,"  as  she  re- 
pentantly called  it,  and  letting  herself  be  carried  away  by 
Stanton.  "You  thought  you  loved  him,  my  darling," 
DeLisle  said.  "And  I  could  forgive  anything  to  love." 

It  was  in  his  arms,  with  her  face  buried  on  his  breast, 
that  she  told  what  her  marriage  had  been,  and  then  came 
the  confession  (for  it  seemed  to  her  a  confession,  though 
she  was  not  ashamed  of  it,  but  proud)  about  Max. 

"He  didn't  speak  one  word  of  love  to  me,"  the  girl  said. 
"He  tried  not  even  to  let  his  eyes  speak.  But  they  did, 
sometimes,  in  spite  of  him.  And  no  man  could  possibly 
endure  or  do  for  a  woman  the  things  he  endured  and  did 
for  me,  every  one  of  those  terrible  days,  if  he  didn't  love 
her.  So  when  I  was  afraid  he  might  die  from  the  viper's 
bite,  I  wanted  him  to  have  one  happy  moment  in  this 
world  to  remember  in  the  next.  I  told  him  that  I  cared, 
and  he  kissed  my  hand  and  looked  at  me.  That's  all, 


366  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

except  just  a  word  or  two  that  I  keep  too  sacredly  to  tell 
even  you.  And  afterward  when  Richard  was  dead,  and 
Max  and  I  were  alone  in  the  desert,  save  for  a  few  Arabs, 
he  never  again  referred  to  that  night,  or  spoke  of  our  love. 
I  was  sure  it  was  only  because  we  were  alone  and  I  de- 
pended on  him.  But  after  those  weeks  and  months  of 
facing  death  together,  it  seems  that  we  belong  to  each 
other,  he  and  I.  Nothing  must  part  us  —  nothing." 

She  was  half  afraid  her  father  might  remind  her  of  the 
situation  which  had  arisen  between  Max  as  a  deserter 
and  himself  as  colonel  of  the  regiment  from  which  Max 
had  deserted. 

But  Colonel  DeLisle  did  not  say  this  or  anything  like  it. 
He  knew  that  love  was  the  greatest  thing  in  the  world 
for  his  daughter,  as  it  had  been  for  him,  and  he  could  not 
cheat  her  out  of  it.  He  was  sad  because  it  seemed  to  him 
that  in  honour  he  could  do  nothing  for  this  deserter  who 
had  done  everything  for  him  —  nothing,  that  is,  save  give 
him  his  daughter,  and  abandon  what  remained  of  his  own 
career  by  resigning  his  commission.  As  colonel  of  the 
Legion,  his  child  could  not  be  allowed  to  marry  a  deserter, 
a  fugitive  who  dare  not  enter  France.  As  for  him,  De- 
Lisle,  though  the  Legion  was  much  to  him,  Sanda  was 
more.  But  she  said  she  and  Max  would  not  take  happi- 
ness at  that  price.  They  must  think  of  some  other  way. 
And  the  other  way  was  the  plan. 

When  the  colonel  returned  to  Algeria  and  his  regiment 
Max  had  not  yet  gained  enough  strength  to  be  seen  and 
thanked  for  what  he  had  done,  even  if  DeLisle  had  found 
it  compatible  with  his  official  duty  to  say  to  a  deserter 
what  wa,s  in  his  heart  to  say  to  Sanda's  hero.  And  per- 


THE  PLAY  OF  CROSS  PURPOSES        867 

haps,  Sanda  thought,  it  was  as  well  that  they  did  not  meet 
just  then.  Irrevocable  things  might  have  been  spoken 
between  them. 

The  day  after  her  father's  ship  sailed  for  Algiers  she 
took  another  that  went  from  Port  Said  to  Marseilles. 
From  Marseilles  she  travelled  to  Paris,  which  was  familiar 
ground  to  her.  What  she  did  there  gave  a  new  fillip 
to  the  Stanton-DeLisle-St.George  sensation,  though  at 
the  same  time  it  put  an  extinguisher  on  all  discussions: 
a  blow  to  those  retired  officers  who  liked  writing  to  the 
papers. 

Lest  what  the  papers  said  should  be  prematurely  seen 
by  the  convalescent's  eyes,  however,  Sanda  hurried  back 
to  Egypt. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

THE   GIFT 

MAX  was  sitting  up  in  a  reclining  chair,  for  the  first  time, 
on  the  day  of  Sanda's  return  to  Cairo. 

He  knew  that  she  had  gone  to  France  on  business  of 
some  sort,  but  he  had  no  idea  what  it  was.  It  did  not 
occur  to  him  that  it  might  have  to  do  with  his  affairs. 
Probably  (he  thought)  it  was  connected  with  Stanton, 
who  had  left  money,  and  who  had  "geographical  invest- 
ments," as  he  called  them,  all  over  the  world,  in  France, 
perhaps,  among  other  places.  But  somehow  Max  could 
not  imagine  Sanda  accepting  money  for  herself  that  came 
from  Stanton,  even  if  it  were  legally  hers. 

Although  Max  was  still  weak,  he  had  begun  to  think 
urgently,  insistently,  about  the  future.  All  the  objections 
that  Colonel  DeLisle  could  see  to  the  marriage  of  Sanda 
Stanton  with  the  deserter  St.  George,  the  deserter  St. 
George  saw,  and  many  more.  It  was  caddish  to  think  of 
marrying  her,  and  monstrous  to  think  of  giving  her  up. 
His  anxious  thoughts  toiled  round  and  round  in  a  vicious 
circle  whence  there  seemed  no  way  out. 

In  the  morning  the  doctor  came  in  and  laid  down  on  the 
table,  with  his  hat,  gloves,  and  stick,  a  newspaper.  As 
he  examined  his  patient,  the  nurse  picked  up  the  journal 
and  began  to  glance  quickly  from  column  to  column  in 

368 


THE  GIFT  369 

order  to  have  absorbed  the  news  by  the  time  the  doctor 
wanted  her  services  —  or  his  paper.  Suddenly,  not  being 
possessed  of  great  self-control  except  in  professional 
emergencies,  she  gave  vent  to  a  shrill  little  squeak  of  ex- 
citement. 

Max  and  the  doctor  both  turned  their  heads;  and  when 
the  latter  saw  his  newspaper  open  in  the  young  woman's 
hand,  he  guessed  instantly  what  had  excited  her.  He 
anathematized  himself  for  putting  the  paper  where  she 
could  get  at  it;  for  without  doubt  Mrs.  Stanton  would 
want  to  tell  the  great  news  herself.  She  must  not  be 
defrauded  of  the  pleasure,  for  she  would  certainly  make 
a  point  of  getting  back  for  a  "look  at  the  patient"  to-day 
or  to-morrow.  If  to-day,  she  might  appear  at  any  minute, 
for  a  P.  &  O.  boat-train  had  arrived  at  Cairo  late  the  night 
before,  Doctor  Taylor  had  heard,  and  it  was  now  nine- 
thirty  in  the  morning  —  not  too  early  to  expect  her. 

Nurse  Yorke  must  not  blurt  out  the  tidings  in  her 
common  way !  But  how  to  stop  her  without  arousing  St. 
George's  curiosity? 

"Oh,  I  suppose  you've  got  hold  of  the  advertisement  of 
that  sale  I  told  you  of,"  he  said,  glaring  over  the  top  of 
Max's  head. 

"  Why !  I've  found  -  "  the  nurse  began  briskly,  but 
withered  under  Doctor  Taylor's  forbidding  gaze. 

"I  knew  nothing  else  could  have  excited  you  so  much," 
he  went  on  masterfully,  still  hypnotizing  her  with  his  eyes, 
until  even  a  duller  woman  would  have  grasped  his  mean- 
ing.   But  maybe  he  wanted  to  read  out  the  news  him* 
Nurse  Yorke  handed  him  the  paper. 

"Perhaps  Mr.  St.  George  will  be  interested  in  t 


370  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

advertisement  of  this  sale,"  she  suggested,  with  a  coy 
emphasis  which  made  Doctor  Taylor  want  to  smother  the 
well-meaning  creature  with  a  pillow. 

"We'll  let  Mrs.  Stanton  read  it  to  him  when  she  comes," 
he  said  waspishly;  and  at  that  moment  Mrs.  Stanton 
came. 

They  both  knew  her  knock,  and  Nurse  Yorke  flew  to 
open  the  door. 

She  had  a  smile  and  a  word  for  them,  and  then  went 
straight  to  Max.  "How  splendid!  You're  sitting  up," 
she  said.  "  This  is  worth  travelling  fast  for,  if  there  were 
nothing  else.  But  there  is.  There's  something  next  best 
to  your  getting  well."  Then  she  caught  sight  of  the  open 
paper  in  the  nurse's  hand.  "Have  you  —  has  any  one 
been  telling  you  —  or  reading  you  to-day's  news?"  she 
asked,  breathless. 

"Nurse  Yorke  was  just  beginning  to  read  something 
about  a  sale,  I  think,"  Max  answered,  hardly  knowing 
what  he  said  because  his  eyes  were  upon  her  —  this  girl 
of  girls,  this  pearl  of  pearls,  whom  honour  was  forcing 
him  to  give  up,  and  at  the  same  time  bidding  him  to  keep. 
He  thought  that  he  had  never  seen  her  so  lovely  as  to-day, 
in  the  simple  travelling  dress  and  hat  all  of  black,  yet  not 
mourning.  There  was  a  look  of  heaven  in  her  eyes,  and 
they  seemed  to  say  that  this  heaven  was  for  him.  Could 
he  refuse  it?  He  gave  her  back  look  for  look;  and  neither 
he  nor  she  knew  what  they  said  when  Doctor  Taylor 
invited  Nurse  Yorke  to  go  with  him  into  the  next  room 
and  examine  the  chart. 

"Are  you  glad  I'm  back?  "  Sanda  asked,  drawing  a  chair 
close  up  to  the  chaise  tongue. 


THE  GIFT  371 

"Glad?  You're  worth  all  the  doctor's  medicines  and 
tonics.  I'm  well  now ! " 

"Aren't  you  dying  to  hear  my  news?  " 

"It's  such  wonderful  news  that  you've  come,  I  can't 
think  of  anything  else,"  Max  assured  her,  gazing  at  her 
hair,  her  eyes,  her  mouth  —  her  sweet,  sweet  mouth. 

"All  the  same  I'm  going  to  tell  you,"  Sanda  insisted, 
panting  a  little  over  her  heartbeats.  "My  news  is  not 
about  a  'sale,'  it's  about  a  gift.  Yet  I  think  it's  the  very 
same  news  Nurse  Yorke  almost  read  you.  Oh,  I  should 
have  been  thwarted,  cheated,  if  she  had!  This  is  for  me 
to  tell  you,  my  Soldier,  me,  and  no  one  else,  for  the  gift 
is  to  me,  for  you.  The  President  of  the  French  Republic 
has  given  it  to  me  for  Max  St.  George  of  the  Tenth  Com- 
pany, First  Regiment  of  the  Legion;  Max  St.  George, 
owner  of  the  Chateau  de  la  Tour,  home  of  his  far-off 
ancestors  —  where  he  and  his  Sanda  will  go  some  day 
together  when  he's  tired  of  soldiering  —  and  Sanda's 
father,  Max's  grateful  colonel,  will  visit  them.  And  that 
wonderful  old  Four  Eyes,  who  has  almost  worked  the 
Legion  into  a  mutiny  for  the  Soldier's  sake,  will  live  with 
them,  if  he  can  ever  bear  to  leave  the  Legion.  Now, 
can't  you  guess  what  the  President's  gift  is?  " 

"Not  —  not  pardon?"  Max's  lips  formed  the  words 
which  he  could  not  speak  aloud.  But  it  was  as  if  Sanda 

heard. 

"Pardon,  and  a  lieutenant's  commission  in  the  Legion." 

"Sanda!" 

All  the  worship  of  a  man's  heart  and  soul  were  in  that 
name  as  it  broke  from  him  with  a  sob. 

"My  Soldier!"  she  answered,  in  his  arms.    And  then 


372  A  SOLDIER  OF  THE  LEGION 

they  spoke  no  more;  for  again  they  were  living  through 
in  that  minute  all  the  long  months  of  agony  and  bliss  in 
the  desert,  when  their  dream  had  been  coming  true. 

****** 

Four  months  later  Max  left  his  bride  to  go  with  a 
French,  English,  and  Russian  contingent  of  the  Legion 
to  fight  with  the  Allies  in  France,  in  the  War  of  the 
World. 

Sanda  waits,  and  prays  —  and  hopes. 


THE    END 


THE   COUNTBT   LIFE   PRES9 
GARDEN  C1TT,  N.  T. 


A    000133532    2 


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